Virginia’s higher-education collapse should serve as a warning to the Trump administration that reforms won by executive muscle rather than durable settlement do not survive when political power changes hands.

Under Governor Abigail Spanberger, newly empowered Democrats moved quickly to remake governing boards at the University of Virginia, George Mason University, and the Virginia Military Institute. Dozens of appointments were pushed through in rapid succession, partisan majorities were secured, and legal counsel at GMU and VMI were removed almost immediately.

These moves were framed as necessary correctives to Republican interventions under Governor Glenn Youngkin, who had openly challenged “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) practices across Virginia’s colleges and universities.

Whatever one’s view of those reforms, governance in Virginia has become reactive rather than stewarding, with each administration acting as though it must seize institutional control before the next election reverses it. Political turnover now comes fast enough to induce governance whiplash, and universities are the ones absorbing the force.

Yet, universities are not built to endure sudden political reversals.

Academic programs take years to develop. Presidents require time and confidence to lead. Faculty governance depends on institutional legitimacy, and donor-funded initiatives depend on continuity. All of this erodes when governing boards are repeatedly remade on an electoral timetable.

Governing boards exist to provide fiduciary oversight and strategic insulation from day-to-day politics. When they instead operate as rotating partisan delegations, presidents learn the wrong lessons: avoid risk, defer reform, and govern cautiously. The result is paralysis rather than accountability—exactly the opposite of what reformers claim to want.

It’s important, however, to acknowledge how this cycle was set in motion.

Governor Youngkin pursued higher-education reform largely through executive authority, using rapid board reshaping to advance policy goals. Even where those goals were defensible—including rooting out DEI—the method itself guaranteed instability. The precedent he set is now being used against those reform efforts.

This is the lesson Virginia now offers the nation, and the Trump administration in particular.

Reforms pursued through executive blitzes invite retaliation and ensure that whatever is achieved is reversible when political control changes hands.

If reform is meant to last, it must be secured through legislation and institutional settlement.