the president does not actually have the power to fire a university president or a museum director, but if elites simply roll over under pressure, then effectively he does
Replies
The level of elite cooperation is mind-blowing. What kind of America do they want to live in? What about their kids and grandkids?
jun 27, 2025, 5:56 pm • 0 0 • view
Universities have governing boards — typically filled with appointees by a governor, a state assembly, etc. if those people are loyalists to a political party or regime, they will impose their will. Seems like that’s what happened at UVA.
jun 27, 2025, 7:00 pm • 7 1 • view
Hear directly from Virginians who spoke at @americanprogress.bsky.social on the harms the Trump administration is visiting upon the Commonwealth www.americanprogress.org/events/crush...
jun 27, 2025, 7:02 pm • 10 1 • view
Awful.
jun 27, 2025, 7:50 pm • 1 0 • view
Virginia is turning into a commonpoverty, huh?
jun 27, 2025, 8:03 pm • 2 0 • view
This is way too depressingly accurate
jun 27, 2025, 8:05 pm • 2 0 • view
Another commonwealth state, Kentucky, is also headed to become a commonpoverty through the collusion of the Great Turtle. "Aw, they won't care about a faded away Medicaid." While the Money Worshiper Dance goes on at ever increasing intensity. A few make out like bandits. A lot make out robbed.
jun 27, 2025, 8:08 pm • 1 0 • view
It is sickening, between this and Harvard likely making a deal soon and the supreme Court, I fear for the future.
jun 27, 2025, 5:08 pm • 0 0 • view
He’s a coward who clearly doesn’t care about the university, its students and faculty. A sad little man! Too bad, they could have used a fighter.
jun 27, 2025, 7:22 pm • 0 0 • view
They are just a bunch of spineless f's.
jun 28, 2025, 3:38 pm • 0 0 • view
It's a measure of whether these people have spines. Everyone is afraid of retribution by a person completely out of anyone's control, but few are willing to stand up and take whatever comes in protest.
jun 27, 2025, 5:07 pm • 5 1 • view
I think it's insight of crimes because people in them places should now this. I think the blackmailing is strong with 45/47
jun 29, 2025, 1:00 am • 0 0 • view
He was weak. A good president, by all accounts, but weak. Disappointing.
jun 28, 2025, 12:01 pm • 0 0 • view
Wow, totally missed this one!?! What happened here!?! (Will look up myself.) UVA had asserted itself as a persistent top ten (at a minimum) university in the last decade. This should have given him the clout (and backup from the donors) to push back comfortably.
jun 28, 2025, 1:18 pm • 0 0 • view
Of course, just more anti-DEI idiocy. Again, he certainly had the clout to tell these fckrs where to sit and spin...including any of the university's big donors given the university's academic strength and standing.
jun 28, 2025, 1:30 pm • 0 0 • view
Shameful.
jun 28, 2025, 9:44 am • 0 0 • view
We are well past the point of every single university leader needing to stand up and say, No, we will not cave, go ahead and take me to court (esp schools like UVA who have excellent lawyers).
jun 27, 2025, 6:12 pm • 0 0 • view
It’s so difficult to see those with so much voice and potential power cower and roll over while those with so little get steamrolled on a daily basis.
jun 27, 2025, 9:38 pm • 0 0 • view
He says he resigned for the benefit of UVa's employees, and I don't doubt that that's true. Still wish he hadn't done it, though.
jun 28, 2025, 4:16 pm • 0 0 • view
The Trump administration would like control over our universities. Just imagine how much power 🔥 that gives him.
jun 28, 2025, 5:06 am • 0 0 • view
You’re right. The president has no power over universities. He made a disastrous decision to resign.
jun 27, 2025, 10:47 pm • 1 0 • view
He was also getting pressure prior to this because of all the Republican based people on the board. And the governor.
jun 27, 2025, 10:58 pm • 3 0 • view
Where *is* everybody?
jun 27, 2025, 5:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Real Goodfellas shit, where the boss doesn't actually have to do or say anything and everyone just acts accordingly.
jun 27, 2025, 8:01 pm • 0 0 • view
I was thinking the same thing. At first I felt badly for the UVA President, but he seems to have taken the easy way out. He should have stayed and fought. As a former Wahoo, it breaks my heart.
jun 28, 2025, 12:36 pm • 1 0 • view
Frankly, I am starting to believe that students need to proactively contact the governing bodies of their universities and pledge to transfer if they bow down to Trump’s pressure. It won’t take many to get their attention.
jun 27, 2025, 8:07 pm • 3 0 • view
DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE!
jun 28, 2025, 12:07 am • 0 0 • view
It'd be great if people could have a spine and stop having to this felon.
jun 27, 2025, 10:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Elites are so soft, they either don't remember what it's like at the bottom or they were never there.
jun 28, 2025, 5:44 am • 1 0 • view
People have got to stop being afraid of this motherfucker!
jun 27, 2025, 11:55 pm • 2 0 • view
What the Fuck on Steroids, how can this travesty happen?? From what I read he was a good and honest man and a very good administrator..
jun 27, 2025, 5:33 pm • 2 0 • view
"don't obey in advance".
jun 27, 2025, 7:17 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm thinking - based on the judiciary's response to this shit - is that Trump has the power to do anything he wants to do. Nobody is going to stop him or his evil minions like Miller.
jun 27, 2025, 6:11 pm • 2 0 • view
Come on, man! Don’t just resign, stand up!
jun 27, 2025, 10:08 pm • 0 0 • view
To what extent, if at all, is the UVa resignation due to Gov. Youngkin’s influence over the university or its board?
jun 27, 2025, 5:16 pm • 83 4 • view
Significant.
jun 27, 2025, 5:21 pm • 42 1 • view
University boards are usually pretty conservative given their relationship with the state legislature who hold the purse strings
jun 27, 2025, 5:32 pm • 13 0 • view
Republican Governor and Trump accolyte Glen Youngkin appointed every member of the current UVA board.
jun 29, 2025, 6:49 pm • 0 0 • view
The BoV is also currently packed with Governor Puffy-vest appointees, largely from the malignant tumor of alleged alumni that refer to themselves as the Jefferson Council.
jun 27, 2025, 5:36 pm • 44 4 • view
They need to be purged by Spanberger who ideally should send them to some sort of black site
jun 27, 2025, 5:36 pm • 46 1 • view
By black site, a place that recognizes America’s complicated and diverse cultural history which is rich because of its diversity.
jun 27, 2025, 5:40 pm • 1 0 • view
I'd also accept sending them to a woman-site. These bastards hate everything about the University, and want to go back to the halcyon days of the 50s and early 60s. Coeducation, integration, accepting students who aren't FFVs, and generally everything worth a damn.
jun 27, 2025, 5:39 pm • 20 1 • view
These were the bowtie-wearing fourth-year Buckley spawn haunting the Grounds in the mid 1980s whom few took seriously. I didn't. Now they're the Kavanagh Generation led by Youngkin. If Ryan's replacement can eat a meal in town in public and in peace, C'ville isn't the town I knew for 30 years.
jun 27, 2025, 6:08 pm • 22 1 • view
They'll go over to Farmington or to the other places that have been their traditional refuge.
jun 27, 2025, 6:10 pm • 10 0 • view
Or Boar's Head, I guess. Probably use the University jet to commute elsewhere to socialize. Whoever it is (Cuccinelli?) figures that they're unpopular with at least 80 percent of the global university community. Can't wait to see what the Press Office email blast has to say.
jun 27, 2025, 6:17 pm • 7 1 • view
So much funding now come from big private donors to state funding cuts. Regents/ trustees trend to suck up to them.
jun 27, 2025, 8:34 pm • 0 0 • view
Our donors/Visitors have a notable "evil segregationist misogynist" cohort that they love to pander to.
jun 27, 2025, 8:36 pm • 2 0 • view
I am a prof at a university up North. We’re happy to take good students that idiot Red states are chasing away.
jun 27, 2025, 9:15 pm • 0 0 • view
Yes, this essentially happened in Florida to a HBCU where DeSantis put in a last minute board member to choose the President at FAMU www.cnn.com/2025/06/18/u...
jun 27, 2025, 5:30 pm • 1 0 • view
Youngkin’s appointees on the board are pursuing Trump’s agenda, thus to a large extent would be the answer
jun 27, 2025, 5:22 pm • 3 0 • view
I think it's most of it. I used to be a (very) low-level administrator at UVA. Few people understand how much influence the Board of Visitors and state politicians have over UVA.
jun 27, 2025, 7:19 pm • 3 0 • view
Cowardness is not leadership
jun 27, 2025, 8:14 pm • 1 0 • view
All I see happening in federal government is rolling over. Majorities in each branch are picking off our rights and well-being as cruelly and as fast as possible. Any attempt at roadblock just gives the SC another chance to overcome the attempt.
jun 27, 2025, 6:04 pm • 1 1 • view
I can't believe how quickly they fold. But at the end of the day when you have all the chips that's what you do.
jun 27, 2025, 9:27 pm • 0 0 • view
Trump is operating a protection racket. He's GOTUS, Godfather of the United States.
jun 29, 2025, 6:45 pm • 0 0 • view
The weakest people in “leadership” positions.
jun 27, 2025, 5:34 pm • 1 0 • view
Rank cowardice at all levels
jun 27, 2025, 5:06 pm • 28 1 • view
Chumps
jun 27, 2025, 5:25 pm • 0 0 • view
I’m going to go out on a limb here and posit that he is being extorted. Trump is rapidly standing up his surveillance state. We’ll see many go quietly into the night. Rest assured Palantir has a trove of very personal, and in some cases not so savory information about every person in this country.
jun 27, 2025, 11:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Too bad Univ of VA isn't more like Harvard. Personally I think universities nationwide need to band together presenting unified opposition to the POTUS and his policies.
jun 28, 2025, 1:10 am • 2 0 • view
We have a new national Coward with no fucking balls
jun 27, 2025, 9:01 pm • 0 0 • view
Absolute cowardice and capitulation by Governor Youngkin, AG Miyares and the Commonwealth as a whole. Virginia touts itself as the birthplace of American democracy and UVA claims a heritage of leadership in the cause, but this tarnishes our reputations for a very long time.
jun 27, 2025, 5:26 pm • 3 0 • view
Cowards
jun 27, 2025, 5:40 pm • 3 0 • view
Oh, this is horrible!
jun 27, 2025, 5:42 pm • 1 0 • view
THIS IS CRIME BY THE STATE!
jun 27, 2025, 9:20 pm • 1 0 • view
Gregory Brown just wanted his place in time, Jamelle. giving.virginia.edu/stories/his-...
jun 27, 2025, 5:05 pm • 0 0 • view
I wouldn’t even quiet quit, I’ve never rolled over to bad bosses. You want to make me quit? Fuck off, fire me for the nothing wrong I’m doing.
jun 27, 2025, 5:22 pm • 2 0 • view
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we live among cowards.
jun 28, 2025, 10:52 am • 6 0 • view
In many parts of the world, people are still scrapping for survival. In my 60+ years in America, we've been atuned to a complacency, a stupor. We've rewarded basic decency with a Nobel of sorts. I hope that in the terror of this moment, Darwinism will weed them out.
jun 28, 2025, 11:29 am • 1 0 • view
Good riddance, wuss.
jun 27, 2025, 7:49 pm • 0 0 • view
Some folks don’t have the stomach for hardball. He lacks grit & U. of Virginia is better off..
jun 27, 2025, 7:49 pm • 0 0 • view
I am truly perplexed as to why everyone isn’t just ignoring him. His proclamations aren’t laws.
jun 28, 2025, 1:22 am • 0 0 • view
It's like the old saying goes: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It's unsettling to see how political loyalty can influence decisions that affect the future of our institutions. What do you think is the most concerning aspect of this trend?
jun 28, 2025, 9:19 am • 0 1 • view
This is exactly the problem, you nailed it.
jun 28, 2025, 12:38 am • 0 0 • view
It’s plain old extortion. Fire him or we’ll make things so miserable for you it’ll be impossible to function. Might even say he’s “weaponizing” the DOJ.
jun 27, 2025, 7:19 pm • 0 0 • view
every abuser requires a coterie of enablers, whether willing or unwilling
jun 27, 2025, 5:20 pm • 0 0 • view
Stop rolling over for bullies if you don't want them to phuck you!
jun 27, 2025, 9:28 pm • 0 0 • view
Then why don’t you openly criticize the New York Times for their sane washing coverage of Trump and then force them to fire you?
jun 27, 2025, 7:00 pm • 0 0 • view
Any Ideas on what non-elites can or should be doing despite elite rollovers?
jun 27, 2025, 8:04 pm • 1 0 • view
The execrable Youngkin should never be forgiven for what he has done to this state and this great university. He is beyond the pale of the moral universe.
jun 27, 2025, 5:58 pm • 1 0 • view
He’s a rapist. Given leverage, he will rape you.
jun 27, 2025, 10:58 pm • 2 0 • view
Cowards. It's the theme of our time. Powerful people prostrating themselves for... what, the biggest joke of a president ever? Do something, you bitch-ass weaklings. 🖕🖕🖕🖕
jun 27, 2025, 5:12 pm • 14 2 • view
We're skipping the Hungarian version of autocracy, going straight to the Russian version.
jun 28, 2025, 12:46 am • 11 1 • view
Anyone wanna make bets on how long it'll take before we become Russia? I'm thinking 1 more year at this rate.
jun 28, 2025, 2:27 pm • 1 0 • view
How so many people voluntarily handed over so much power to one man is beyond me. If this were a movie, we'd all be saying how unrealistic it is.
jun 28, 2025, 11:42 am • 9 1 • view
Say what you will about Jerome Powell, but at the bare minimum, he doesn't bow to Trump when he is under absolutely no obligation to do so... which is too rare nowadays.
jun 27, 2025, 5:13 pm • 0 0 • view
bsky.app/profile/mark...
jun 27, 2025, 6:04 pm • 114 20 • view
jun 27, 2025, 6:51 pm • 4 1 • view
Harnessing means controlling an actual power; the Regime is acting beyond any acknowledged Executive power, which is an abuse.
jun 27, 2025, 6:21 pm • 45 1 • view
The devil is an actual power. Just saying. Inferior to classic non-church-state God's power, but still actual.
jun 27, 2025, 8:01 pm • 2 0 • view
You think he's "harnessed" the devil? I'm not convinced he's harnessed his bowel movements.
jun 27, 2025, 10:14 pm • 5 0 • view
I don't know that he's harnessed anything but he works for the devil. As for his bowel movements, perhaps God is handling those.
jun 28, 2025, 12:25 am • 1 0 • view
The clueless guy doesn't understand that even diapers are a mercy compared with what his cruel society would wish upon him.
jun 28, 2025, 12:37 am • 1 0 • view
Remember the classic deals with the devil? This might be part of the trade. He gets to pretend almost anything, while his actual substance goes to hades.
jun 27, 2025, 11:23 pm • 0 0 • view
I would not resign, they can fire me, they can push me out, but I would sink my teeth in and universities should do the same. It appalls me how many of our institutions are folding to authoritarianism.
jun 27, 2025, 6:27 pm • 1 0 • view
When did this country get to be so horribly pusillanimous?
jun 27, 2025, 7:26 pm • 0 0 • view
In my department, the woman who was head of the “women in academic medicine” group sent an email weeks ago saying we had to disband. “Who says so??” was all I could say in reply. This is not a law! You won’t go to jail for continuing to send emails. We can still meet!
jun 27, 2025, 5:26 pm • 29 1 • view
Isn't the right to assemble part of the First Amendment?
jun 27, 2025, 5:37 pm • 16 0 • view
That is what I thought too!
jun 27, 2025, 5:37 pm • 6 0 • view
Why are they not fighting back?
jun 27, 2025, 9:22 pm • 0 0 • view
So they blackmailed him and/or UVA.
jun 28, 2025, 3:27 am • 4 0 • view
😡😡
jun 27, 2025, 9:12 pm • 0 0 • view
This is what I don't get - the number of people & institutions who are simply rolling over. My lifelong reaction to being pressured has always been to dig my heels in. I recognize that that is not necessarily psychologically healthy, but these capitulation have to be even less healthy.
jun 27, 2025, 10:27 pm • 1 0 • view
Capitulations
jun 27, 2025, 10:29 pm • 0 0 • view
The only power he has is the power they choose to give him. They need to stop doing that.
jun 27, 2025, 10:38 pm • 11 0 • view
This is coming across loud and clear from several different channels. So what is the answer? The only way the people alone can make change while the elites stand by with their hands in their pockets, is through revolt. And I am not seeing that either.
jun 27, 2025, 7:40 pm • 0 0 • view
I know he’ll probably fail upwards, but it’s sad the gutless cowards aren’t forever stigmatized
jun 27, 2025, 5:34 pm • 0 0 • view
Seems like the UVA folks saw that the good old boys got their way at VMI and wanted the same for themselves. Keeps working!
jun 27, 2025, 5:08 pm • 9 1 • view
Melissa Murray on MSNBC said he wanted to prevent the damage pulling funding would cause to the research facilities, school, entire community as a large employer, etc while he fought this for the last year of his contract
jun 27, 2025, 10:03 pm • 4 0 • view
This is….shocking. Also fascist.
jun 28, 2025, 12:19 am • 1 0 • view
We are continue to find out which people in leadership roles are actual leaders or facile administrators
jun 27, 2025, 5:06 pm • 29 1 • view
Fully agree - I live in Europe and I am very much surprised on how easily the US elites bend the knee … it seems that they will need to live in a concrete and very real dictatorship to understand that one must resist till the end 😑
jun 27, 2025, 5:13 pm • 9 0 • view
They don’t think Trump’s agendas it will affect them adversely. They don’t realize that they’re making a Faustian bargain.
jun 27, 2025, 5:37 pm • 3 0 • view
I wonder what the late Mexican muralist and printmaker José Clemente Orozco would think of an institutionalized education system under Trump.
jun 27, 2025, 5:58 pm • 1 0 • view
Universities are useless if they can't stand up to this.
jun 28, 2025, 12:13 am • 24 0 • view
This is very dangerous. Having independent news, colleges etc made us powerful and attracted new talent. No new talent,no new discoveries, trials nothing. Stop letting your ignorance guide you. DEI is good! Racism bad. How hard is this to understand.
jun 28, 2025, 12:46 am • 0 0 • view
OH FFS!
jun 27, 2025, 5:06 pm • 2 0 • view
It’s beginning to appear that you have to be a coward just to be a university president in the first place. Have to admit, it makes being cowardly later a whole lot easier.
jun 27, 2025, 7:30 pm • 0 0 • view
wimps. all of these people have power. JUST SAY “NO”
jun 28, 2025, 2:01 am • 0 0 • view
DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE.
jun 27, 2025, 5:14 pm • 21 0 • view
Illegitimate authority requires permission.
jun 27, 2025, 5:11 pm • 0 0 • view
jun 27, 2025, 5:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Everyone is blasting this guy for his cowardice, but very few people seem to have the courage to stand up to Trump. The Rep politicians had their opportunity to shed the shackles of him post J6, but they caved to his bullying. Apparently it’s not so easy when you find yourself in his crosshairs.
jun 27, 2025, 6:35 pm • 2 1 • view
These were always bad people. Trump just humiliates them as they get what they always wanted
jun 27, 2025, 8:00 pm • 1 0 • view
Will the former UVA president also be self-deporting even though he wasn’t asked to yet?
jun 27, 2025, 6:45 pm • 2 0 • view
They can’t “fire” a University President. But… they can cancel all the visas of every foreign student going to a specific university. And that’s… not tenable for a University. This is the result of electing a thug.
jun 28, 2025, 1:13 am • 13 0 • view
Because he’s a magia mobster bully and those he threatens fear his rath he has basically declared Himself long and them the moronic scouts gave him immunity, This country is fucked.
jun 28, 2025, 1:38 am • 0 0 • view
Cowardice at every level.
jun 27, 2025, 6:46 pm • 26 1 • view
What a f-ing day. 🤦♀️
jun 27, 2025, 7:21 pm • 3 0 • view
We need more patriots right now.
jun 27, 2025, 8:14 pm • 0 0 • view
White men are the ones for whom the consequences are least if they choose to stand up AND it means the most when they do. BUT they are also the ones most afraid to.
jun 28, 2025, 4:07 am • 0 0 • view
Compliance is not deserved or wise. It’s short term thinking and…FDT.
jun 27, 2025, 10:18 pm • 0 0 • view
What does "pressure from Trump" actually include? I wouldn't put it past these gangsters to threaten people and/or their families with violence. I'm sure there is more to this than just bureaucrats giving in to implied pressure. This is MAGA, after all and violence is their middle name.
jun 27, 2025, 6:02 pm • 2 0 • view
Damn them to Hell for obeying in advance.
jun 27, 2025, 7:28 pm • 0 0 • view
Seriously, there was mass protest the last time the BoV got sneaky with a president, and this guy just rolls over? C’mon, man!
jun 27, 2025, 5:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Is the Law School next?
jun 27, 2025, 5:08 pm • 1 0 • view
💯 He uses the power given to him by every agency, every Congressional Republican and every corporation around him. The capitulation is astounding.
jun 27, 2025, 6:42 pm • 3 0 • view
And the University of Flordia white supremist, white nationalist who was awarded for his racist paper. The country needs protected from a "non white majority," "Jews should be abolished by any means necessary." While the school is axing efforts to promote diversity and inclusion. Not a good look
jun 27, 2025, 7:00 pm • 0 0 • view
The free country is literally 100% over. We just need 200M+ people to wake up to that to have any chance
jun 27, 2025, 8:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Absurd.
jun 27, 2025, 7:55 pm • 0 0 • view
F*cking people, we are in trouble
jun 27, 2025, 5:09 pm • 0 0 • view
110% It’s pretty elementary - you’d think more folks would get it
jun 27, 2025, 5:55 pm • 0 0 • view
I will NEVER understand their buckling under his pressure. It would only strengthen my resolve.
jun 27, 2025, 8:48 pm • 2 0 • view
This
jun 27, 2025, 6:48 pm • 0 0 • view
Is it a fair fight when one has morals and the one holding the purse does not? It was blackmail. Either he quit, or many of his colleagues lose their jobs.
jun 28, 2025, 1:55 pm • 0 0 • view
it likely helps that UVa is a state university, which means that he's ultimately subject to the authority of the state governor, who at present is a Trump ally been seeing the same thing in Indiana, with Indiana's state schools all knuckling under to the fascist wannabees in the state capital
jun 27, 2025, 5:30 pm • 0 0 • view
Another cowardly act. TACO DON has his name for a reason. When a bully is confronted their weaknesses show...
jun 27, 2025, 6:34 pm • 1 0 • view
Awful.
jun 27, 2025, 5:39 pm • 7 0 • view
Just when you thought the day couldn’t get worse…This is terrible.
jun 27, 2025, 5:57 pm • 6 0 • view
Beyond terrible.
jun 27, 2025, 7:14 pm • 4 0 • view
Every public university prez is gonna do what they have to so they make sure they cam keep cashing those sweet checks.
jun 27, 2025, 7:15 pm • 2 0 • view
Embarrassing
jun 28, 2025, 3:36 am • 1 0 • view
The cowardice of bureaucrats is playing a large role in the rise of American fascism.
jun 27, 2025, 5:04 pm • 174 20 • view
For a long time that's been all that was needed to keep their sinecures. Then SURPRISE!
jun 27, 2025, 8:02 pm • 2 0 • view
Yea, imagine if they just told these jokers to fuck off.
jun 27, 2025, 6:36 pm • 34 1 • view
Not feasible given that the current board is made up entirely of Glenn Youngkin appointees, none of whom had President Ryan's back.
jun 29, 2025, 7:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Yeah, like Trump officials say to lawful orders from the courts that they don’t feel like following.
jun 27, 2025, 6:47 pm • 19 0 • view
They could take a lesson from the governor of Maine.
jun 27, 2025, 7:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Why is everyone so afraid of Trump, of all people ?
jun 27, 2025, 5:41 pm • 0 0 • view
Madness
jun 27, 2025, 11:52 pm • 0 0 • view
I guess what I wonder is why no one seems to want to fight. He's the President of the #5 school in the Country and doesn't have the support of his Board enough to take on the President of the United States and why is everyone with power such a fucking coward?!?!
jun 27, 2025, 8:40 pm • 1 0 • view
I’m so disappointed by this, and I’m exhausted by rich alumni thinking they can run everything.
jun 27, 2025, 5:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Cowards
jun 27, 2025, 7:59 pm • 0 0 • view
All 'power' means is what things are you able to make happen by your own actions Power exists distinctly from law or the constitution. Just because a piece of paper tells a despot he can't do something doesn't mean jack
jun 27, 2025, 7:55 pm • 0 0 • view
He clerked for Rehnquist! He clearly arranged a golden handshake for himself, probably involving taxpayer money. This is just another dirty trick to fool MAGA into believing the administration is bringing big changes to universities. Wake me when any of them take a hit to their athletic budgets.
jun 28, 2025, 3:00 am • 5 0 • view
Hold the f^*+¥!? line!
jun 27, 2025, 9:16 pm • 0 0 • view
So true. And is your last edition of Unclear and Present Danger going up again? I tuned in just in time to know that John's mic tuned out.
jun 27, 2025, 5:06 pm • 0 0 • view
If I were in his shoes I'd do the same thing. It's very nice and cool being a symbol of struggle but it doesn't pay the bills. If there's a choice between sacrificing your life to "do the right thing" or finding another job and moving on, well...
jun 27, 2025, 7:44 pm • 0 0 • view
My God do they know what they do?
jun 27, 2025, 9:13 pm • 0 0 • view
I want to scream. And scream. And weep
jun 28, 2025, 5:38 pm • 1 0 • view
If the BOT (assuming there is one) lets this go down who would want the presidents job there?
jun 27, 2025, 10:57 pm • 0 0 • view
The kind of person you don’t want in that job.
jun 27, 2025, 11:02 pm • 3 0 • view
If only some other country had gone through this so we knew how it would end
jun 28, 2025, 12:12 am • 0 0 • view
Horrific. Adios, UVA.
jun 27, 2025, 5:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Our governor and attorney general are terrible advocates for the state.
jun 27, 2025, 5:22 pm • 1 0 • view
It's sad how many are choosing to bend a knee. #Resist
jun 27, 2025, 8:58 pm • 0 0 • view
Maybe kompromat, maybe threats to himself and/or his family. That's how most reactionaries roll, nowadays.
jun 27, 2025, 8:41 pm • 1 0 • view
This is the second University President to fall. The first was a Black woman at Harvard.
jun 27, 2025, 8:54 pm • 0 0 • view
That was due to bill ackman.
jun 27, 2025, 8:57 pm • 0 0 • view
Cowards.
jun 27, 2025, 8:42 pm • 0 0 • view
If there is no Congress and no court system (true), then he can do literally any goddamn thing he wants.
jun 28, 2025, 3:24 am • 9 0 • view
With the cherry on top that he has immunity when doing “Presidential acts”.
jun 28, 2025, 3:34 am • 4 0 • view
💯
jun 27, 2025, 6:48 pm • 0 0 • view
For fucking real. “I don’t want to fight the federal government.” Then you are a fucking coward and should’ve NEVER been the university president.
jun 28, 2025, 2:42 pm • 9 0 • view
Trump ally Governor Glenn Youngkin appointed every current member of the UVA board. No one had Ryan's back. He's a scholar who has made significant contributions to equity in education. Might he have played this differently early on? Perhaps. President Ryan deserves grace and empathy, not curses.
jun 29, 2025, 6:54 pm • 0 0 • view
Yeah…forgive me if I don’t have, “Resigned Rather Than Fight the Fourth Reich” on my Empathy Bingo card. It is THE fundamental duty of people in Ryan’s position to fight for what’s best for the students (despite the trend toward what’s right for the university’s bottom line). That’s the calling.
jun 29, 2025, 7:07 pm • 0 0 • view
Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), a trans woman, offered some thoughtful words about those of us on the left giving one another grace to disagree. I hope you'll read it. As I said, without backing from his board, Ryan had no options. His book, "Five Miles Away, A World Apart," is about equity in education.
jun 29, 2025, 7:35 pm • 0 0 • view
One classic definition of power is that a person (A) has power when s/he can make another person (B) do something that A wants but B does not want. On this definition, President Trump does evidently have the power to fire university presidents and museum directors.
jun 27, 2025, 5:25 pm • 0 0 • view
Democracy scrapped away piece by piece .
jun 28, 2025, 11:06 am • 0 0 • view
Maybe the problem here has been "too much eliteness." What the system raised, it can also lower.
jun 27, 2025, 7:59 pm • 0 0 • view
Everyday is a sh.. show. UVA should stand up and fight. Oh yeah good people on both sides! UVA teaches to fight for justice and where is that?
jun 27, 2025, 5:59 pm • 1 0 • view
Serious question: is it the money threat that's making everyone roll over & do whatever Trump wants? The cult of personality? Owning the GOP? He's making a fascist realignment look easy.
jun 27, 2025, 7:13 pm • 0 0 • view
Its about the money and endowments...cowardice reigns.
jun 27, 2025, 7:23 pm • 0 0 • view
jun 27, 2025, 8:49 pm • 0 0 • view
everyone that resigns rather than sticks around is a fascist collaborator. I've been saying this for months. You don't resign
jun 28, 2025, 12:59 am • 0 0 • view
I was just saying that he needs to stand his ground and tell Trump fvck all the way off. Capitulation to a bully sucks!
jun 27, 2025, 11:19 pm • 0 0 • view
It really is the cowardice of these times that amazes me. Standing on principle is a "foreign concept" in today's America.
jun 27, 2025, 5:43 pm • 0 0 • view
Yep. Cowards. Just Cowards.
jun 28, 2025, 12:54 am • 0 0 • view
Wish I knew stronger words than feckless cowardice.
jun 27, 2025, 7:43 pm • 0 0 • view
We knew electing Trump was a catastrophe for good people on November 6th.
jun 27, 2025, 6:35 pm • 8 1 • view
He was going to be a vengeful menace even when he'd been wrong or would be wrong. It was like a punch in the chest to me.
jun 27, 2025, 8:06 pm • 0 0 • view
We went from being a world leader to something else overnight. I was groomed to join the military, fight in another country, raise a family and do my civic duty. I thought I was on the same page with friends who are no longer friends.
jun 27, 2025, 8:29 pm • 2 0 • view
It is tragic, but at least in hindsight not surprising. Bad religion has pushed out good.
jun 27, 2025, 8:34 pm • 0 0 • view
I hate Trump. I do. FDR said, "We must be the great arsenal of democracy." Maybe it is time that we stop filling this role. Why does the US have to send soldiers all over the world? Can't they have their own militaries and can't we have universal healthcare.
jun 27, 2025, 11:47 pm • 2 0 • view
I don't think FDR looked at all future possibilities here, and was grandiose beyond reason -- which is perhaps why Eisenhower's GOP came into vogue but soon brought the MIC. I'd have sooner envisioned the USA of his time as a candle that pulled other candles out of the water and lit them.
jun 27, 2025, 11:51 pm • 0 0 • view
But you're right, who needs that burden on their back when winners and losers have to be chosen not for their accomplishments' sake but ours.
jun 27, 2025, 11:53 pm • 0 0 • view
Our virtue today should include being able to look at all politics critically. Sometimes evil did get passed back and forth from party to party, and we can't blame "a party" at all. We have to blame ourselves, and turn back to something nobler.
jun 27, 2025, 11:55 pm • 0 0 • view
And when party B embraced party A's vice, the vice was amplified as that happened, because party B could always blame party A and those who didn't follow a long view of history and viewed party politics as an isolated series of points would be bamboozled....
jun 28, 2025, 12:01 am • 0 0 • view
It is the fault of the American people that we were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for 25 years. The US economy is stimulated by war. It is all in the national debt for our grandkids, but in the meantime my four sons got educations, houses, TBI and PTSD.
jun 28, 2025, 12:02 am • 0 0 • view
concussed and shell shocked, huh -- my sympathies :-( (shell shock is what they called ptsd when my uncle was in the service) Eisenhower warned us. He was a less-cost-prosperity fellow, but unfortunately the war biz was still a subsidized thing. Money bought politics, later tech booms, more.
jun 28, 2025, 12:32 am • 0 0 • view
Cowards! Stand your ground!!
jun 28, 2025, 9:58 am • 0 0 • view
This is bugging me. What exactly was going to happen to him if he stood against them? This result, eventually? So why not stay?
jun 27, 2025, 7:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Nazis. They want our Universities to become their propaganda machines. I’m so over this. They are outnumbered. We need to push back harder than ever.
jun 27, 2025, 9:38 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm really disappointed that he rewarded djt's misbehavior...
jun 28, 2025, 2:47 am • 2 0 • view
I assume he was under huge pressure from the Board to resign.
jun 28, 2025, 3:28 am • 1 0 • view
"obey in advance, and then find out Trump won't stick to the deal anyway" is a bad way to go through life, son!
jun 27, 2025, 5:41 pm • 0 0 • view
I assume Youngkin and trustees put a fuck ton of pressure on. Ryan has been a target for a while for them
jun 27, 2025, 6:28 pm • 0 0 • view
Weimar activism: Sitting around, doing nothing while the Nazis take over.
jun 27, 2025, 5:28 pm • 0 0 • view
The only real thing could do is press Republican in the VA Leg to bring pressure. Dude didn't learn the Harvard lesson, but the Columbia one.
jun 28, 2025, 2:12 am • 0 0 • view
No, but Youngkin appointed board dies. Make no mistake, Youngkin hands all over this. Y is going to need a political job after Nov.
jun 27, 2025, 5:19 pm • 5 0 • view
All you great black male and female athletes-boycott UVA.
jun 27, 2025, 5:12 pm • 0 0 • view
Boycott uVA. MAGA Youngkin instructed his appointees to send msg he was going to be fired. Sick. All of these white nationalists. It has nothing to do with DEI. It has to do with slavery. Do not donate to UVA. Hey girls they think u are DEI students.decrease in female students for White males.
jun 27, 2025, 5:11 pm • 5 0 • view
The function of elites is to roll over under pressure.
jun 27, 2025, 5:12 pm • 0 0 • view
University Presidents are elites and we know they will never be beside us in the streets where this plays out. We knew this going into it.
jun 28, 2025, 4:42 am • 0 0 • view
Jesús fucking christ
jun 27, 2025, 6:40 pm • 2 0 • view
These people never listened to Rage Against The Machine.
jun 28, 2025, 12:31 am • 1 0 • view
Gonna keep shouting it: OUR SO-CALLED ELITES TURNED OUT TO BE MADE OF BALSA WOOD
jun 27, 2025, 6:10 pm • 2 0 • view
Anyone who is willing to bend the knee so readily in the face of a delusional tyrant telling them to quit, doesn't possess the moral fiber for the job in the first place.
jun 27, 2025, 7:07 pm • 1 0 • view
Every prong of the greater GOP project is fully locked in to “yeah, who’s gonna make me” mode. There is no ‘off switch’ for them. This story of the Georgian activist lamenting how she moved too slowly to save her democracy pops into my head more than I’d like. euromaidanpress.com/2025/06/08/i...
jun 27, 2025, 8:54 pm • 2 0 • view
Trump regime is using blackmail rather successfully by threatening to block research funds if Universities don’t conform.
jun 28, 2025, 3:59 am • 0 0 • view
thank you
jun 28, 2025, 11:14 am • 0 0 • view
newrepublic.com/article/1973...
jun 28, 2025, 3:24 am • 19 4 • view
VMI is Sparta. UVA is Argos, once proud, but in defeat, attempting to survive by appeasing rising powers, headed toward irrelevancy.
jun 29, 2025, 7:01 pm • 0 0 • view
Chamberlain seething rn
jun 28, 2025, 4:52 am • 0 0 • view
Michael Steele said something like "First they take your apple, then they take your sandwich, then they follow you home and tell your mom what to pack in the lunch." (paraphrase)
jun 28, 2025, 11:16 am • 2 0 • view
As you suggested yesterday, the problem seems to be that there are forces within many universities who are aligned with Trump, so academic freedom is threatened from within and without. Not unique to UVA, it’s a systemic problem
jun 27, 2025, 6:49 pm • 92 4 • view
yes the board wanted him to resign because funding
jun 27, 2025, 8:46 pm • 7 0 • view
And yet the resignation does not guarantee the funding.
jun 27, 2025, 10:39 pm • 8 0 • view
yeah I know
jun 27, 2025, 10:57 pm • 3 0 • view
On university boards, especially.
jun 28, 2025, 3:42 am • 1 0 • view
I’m sure this is happening in my state, North Carolina.
jun 28, 2025, 3:49 am • 2 0 • view
Very same scenario at the UNC system. We don’t hear a lot about it because sports news tops the list
jun 27, 2025, 6:57 pm • 13 1 • view
A decision of the Trustees. Their names are never revealed in these stories and they should be!
jun 27, 2025, 7:56 pm • 2 0 • view
Nixon would have been impeached for this.
jun 27, 2025, 5:14 pm • 0 0 • view
This is a real shame
jun 27, 2025, 8:05 pm • 1 0 • view
cowards
jun 27, 2025, 5:58 pm • 1 0 • view
bu but but BUUUUT.... we just had huge turnout 'peaceful protests'...... how is this possible??? #peacfulProtestsDontWork
jun 27, 2025, 10:43 pm • 0 0 • view
Desantis has taken over FL's universities. Hitler did the same thing. "The Nazi regime quickly targeted German universities—among the most elite in the world at the time—for restructuring according to Nazi principles." perspectives.ushmm.org/collection/h...
jun 28, 2025, 11:49 am • 6 1 • view
Yeah he apparently does have that power. Punching down is his vibe, and this is only going to get worse.
jun 27, 2025, 5:25 pm • 0 0 • view
Could you please help share 😞 i am a homeless black trans immigrant on the streets desperately need ANY support rn Need to get my hiv medications today also
jun 27, 2025, 5:06 pm • 0 0 • view
What the actual fuck
jun 27, 2025, 7:35 pm • 0 0 • view
Cowardly by Ryan. Don't resign! Make them fire you and state on the record why! Ryan has been a top level college administrator for a while, he's got $$$ and can afford to not get whatever severance they're giving him to slink away.
jun 27, 2025, 5:56 pm • 0 0 • view
Nothing is going to stop this monster if people are weak.
jun 27, 2025, 8:41 pm • 0 0 • view
Unbelievable.
jun 27, 2025, 8:13 pm • 0 0 • view