Editor’s Note: Minding the Campus contributor Scott Gerber recently published an essay in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. With permission, an excerpt of that essay is reproduced below. Readers should note that access to the full piece on the Times-Dispatch website is subject to a paywall.

Honor is supposed to matter at the University of Virginia (UVA). Indeed, UVA’s Honor System is the university’s most sacred tradition, shaping its identity for nearly two centuries. The “community of trust” it creates requires students to act honorably in all aspects of university life.

The adults at UVA seem to have forgotten that they should behave honorably, too. Unfortunately, many have failed to do so since at least September 2020, when the Board of Visitors unanimously adopted the recommendations of then-President Jim Ryan’s Racial Equity Task Force and transformed a once-great university into arguably the most radical “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) institution in higher education. Ryan is a lawyer, and he must have known that treating people differently in employ­ment decisions on the basis of race, sex, and other protected characteristics has been illegal since at least the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

To make matters worse, Ryan appears to have stonewalled multiple federal civil rights investigations into UVA’s DEI regime. He also insisted that he be allowed to return to the faculty at the astronomical salary of $825,000 per year, an arrangement that likely violates the private inurement prohibition of the Internal Revenue Code and places the university’s tax-exempt status at risk. Further, Ryan’s publication of a 12-page missive to the Faculty Senate on the day that body was considering a resolution calling for the immediate resignations of the rector and vice rector of UVA’s Board, in which Ryan essentially accused Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Rector Rachel Sheridan of lying about why he resigned as president, seems more retaliatory than honorable…

Read the full article here.