By law, UVA’s Board of Visitors is supposed to protect the University from outside influences seeking improperly to shape it, but Nursing Professor Kim Aquiviva felt it had failed. The Justice Department had pressed UVA to abandon its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, and when some mid-level officials at D-O-J felt President Jim Ryan had not followed orders, they demanded his resignation.
Rector Rachel Sheridan said lawyers had advised her not to talk about the situation, but begged the faculty to – in her words – take the temperature down. Aquiviva said Sheridan had been negotiating with the Justice Department and requested details, prompting a terse response.
"Your facts are inaccurate. I was not negotiating with the DOJ. I told you that at the outset of my comments, and as for the balance of your inquiry, I think that falls within the purview of things that we are not going to be discussing at this moment," she said.
Sheridan signed off, leaving the faculty senate to debate whether to censure the board of visitors or to express no confidence. The group’s president Jeri Seidman explained the difference.
"A censure expresses a serious disagreement. No confidence expresses to the party in power that they need to convince the group that they deserve trust."
A vote of no confidence passed 46 to six.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine says blocking government interference at UVA is a priority for him and suggested the Board of Visitors take its time in the search for a new school president.
“Any kind of a search right now would produce an applicant pool that would not be the best,” he explained.
Rector Sheridan has pledged to hold a series of listening sessions with faculty and students before starting a search for UVA’s next president but said she and the board hope to choose an interim leader soon.
