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University of Virginia signs White House deal to end probes

Liam Knox and Janet Lorin, Bloomberg News on

Published in News & Features

WASHINGTON — The University of Virginia became the latest college to strike a deal with the Trump administration, settling civil rights investigations that threatened the school’s federal funding and cost its former president his job.

As part of the accord, the university agreed to provide the government with data on its admissions and hiring processes, as well as campus programming, through 2028, according to a statement Wednesday from the Justice Department. In return, the department agreed to close its anti-discrimination probes of the Charlottesville-based school and enable UVA to apply for federal grants.

The agreement “will protect students and faculty from unlawful discrimination,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in the statement. “Other American universities should be on alert that the Justice Department will ensure that our federal civil rights laws are enforced for every American.”

Designed and founded by Thomas Jefferson in the early 1800s, UVA is the first public institution to reach a deal with the administration since President Donald Trump began pressuring schools to drop diversity initiatives and reduce their reliance on foreign students.

As tensions rose, UVA President James Ryan resigned in June, saying he wanted to avoid fighting the government. In a series of letters to university leaders at the time, Dhillon wrote that “dramatic, wholesale changes are required, now, to repair what appears to be a history of clear abuses and breaches of our nation’s laws.”

UVA interim President Paul Mahoney wrote in a statement Wednesday that while the university had already initiated civil rights compliance reviews of its programs and policies in response to the investigations, “some work remains to be done to satisfy fully the terms of this agreement.”

Unlike agreements with Columbia University and Brown University, the UVA deal doesn’t include payments to the government or other financial commitments, nor does it require an external monitor to oversee compliance. The agreement does allow the administration to review the school’s progress and, if found lacking, resume its investigations or freeze federal funding.

 

Mahoney said in a September meeting with UVA’s Faculty Senate that the school had received seven inquiries from the Justice Department accusing it of various civil rights violations. The administration had not suspended federal funding, unlike other schools that have settled or entered talks with the administration.

Early this month, UVA was one of nine schools invited by the White House to sign a compact granting preferential federal funding in exchange for a slew of policy commitments that align with the Trump administration’s priorities. Among the requirements are freezing tuition rates for five years, requiring standardized testing for admissions, banning the use of race or sex in hiring and capping the number of international students.

Wednesday’s deal comes less than a week after the university declined to take part in the compact after meeting with White House officials to discuss the agreement.

Over the summer Columbia agreed to $221 million in payments and a new independent oversight monitor, while Brown University said it would pay $50 million to support workforce development in its home state of Rhode Island.

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