"Community of Trust at Risk. Stand Firm, Wahoos!"

Dear Wahoos,

As evidenced by recent events in the national news, we continue to live in a highly charged and politicized environment. At Wahoos4UVA, we remain dedicated to seeking truth, honor, and accountability in a respectful and peaceful manner. Our time and energy are spent on actions we hope will have a meaningful impact on achieving our mission of defending the University from political interference and protecting viewpoint diversity. When we sit down to write our weekly messages to you, these words from the Honor Committee’s statement on UVA’s Community of Trust serve as our North Star:

“We aim to cultivate habits that will inform our work habits long after we graduate; to assume the best in each other; and to hold fast to notions of right and wrong, even when doing so comes at personal cost. Through this collective effort, our ultimate end is to live and work in a Community of Trust, where honesty and mutual respect are the baseline for all our interactionsand academic endeavors.”

Our expectation is that those entrusted with the governance of the University will hold themselves to a similar standard. In the days and weeks following President Ryan’s resignation, we “assumed the best in each other” and asked questions of the Board of Visitors to deepen our understanding of their actions and the reasons behind them. We weren’t alone: the Faculty Senate, General Faculty Council, Student Council, Staff Senate, the UVA chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the Retired Faculty Association, the United Campus Workers of Virginia, the deans, and elected officials in the General Assembly of Virginia all made efforts to understand what the Board did and why.

Eleven weeks have passed and the Board of Visitors has notably failed to honor any of these requests for transparency and accountability. Emails and letters have gone unanswered. Invitations to the Rector and Vice Rector to speak to the Faculty Senate have been ignored. Pleas for the Board to focus on rebuilding trust before launching a presidential search have gone unacknowledged. The disregard shown by the Board of Visitors to the University community has been staggering. Last week we said we were hopeful they would show more respect for a member of the General Assembly.

We were wrong.

Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds (whose district includes Charlottesville) sent a letter to Rector Rachel Sheridan and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson on August 1. The letter contained 46 questions about the Rector and Vice Rector’s conduct and decisions leading up to President Ryan’s forced resignation. In a response sent to Deeds on August 29 by a Debevoise & Plimpton attorney on the Board of Visitors’ behalf, the Rector and Vice Rector failed to answer the vast majority of the questions posed by Senator Deeds.

Senator Deeds’ questions were straightforward, and he was well within his rights to ask them. As he noted in his letter, “The General Assembly has a constitutional and statutory interest in the governance and operations of public institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth, including the University of Virginia. Recent events surrounding the forced resignation of President James E. Ryan raise urgent concerns about transparency, shared governance, and whether the University's governing board has operated within the bounds of its legal and ethical responsibilities.”

Instead of answering Senator Deeds’ questions, Rector Sheridan and Vice Rector Wilkinson—both of whom are attorneys—chose to hire an attorney. The attorney they chose to represent them is David O’Neil, Co-Chair of Debevoise & Plimpton’s White Collar & Regulatory Defense Group. While it’s apparent the Rector and Vice Rector understand the seriousness of the questions raised about their conduct, their refusal to answer those questions only heightens our level of concern for the University.

It’s a Small World: The Carr’s Hill Connection

The Debevoise & Plimpton attorney representing the Rector and Vice Rector is David O’Neil, the son of the sixth president of UVA, the late Robert (“Bob”) O’Neil. UVA’s official website about O’Neil’s presidency includes a photo of young David O’Neil and his brother at Carr’s Hill, alongside President Jimmy Carter and members of the Carr’s Hill staff.

Former President O’Neil and former President Jim Ryan have more in common than both having lived in the same house and holding the same title. Both recognized the importance of a diverse UVA community in which every person is treated with respect and given the support they need to succeed. As UVA’s website notes:

“Improving the representation of African Americans among students and faculty and the representation of women among faculty at the University was a particular area of concern in O’Neil’s presidency. He became the University’s sixth president in 1985, and by 1987, the University had established the Holland Scholarships to attract African American students. By 1989, the University’s Women’s Center had opened, as did a day care center for employees’ children. He established task forces to study the status of women and minorities at the University…”

We’re grateful for the contributions President O’Neil made to the University of Virginia, and we hope the Board doesn’t allow the Department of Justice to undo his good works.

Voluntary Resolution Agreement

It’s been reported that before their terms began as Rector and Vice Rector, Sheridan and Wilkinson met with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and then, with outside counsel, communicated the DOJ’s demand to President Ryan that he resign in order to resolve the DOJ inquiry. That was 11 weeks ago, and there’s still no Voluntary Resolution Agreement.

So, why hasn’t the deal been signed yet? We’ve heard a number of theories, none of which we’ve seen evidence to substantiate:

• Is the DOJ waiting until a permanent president they approve of is selected before they’ll agree to ink the deal?
• Is the DOJ holding off on signing the agreement because the lack of a financial penalty for UVA will make other universities hold out for a better deal?
• Is the Board of Visitors having second thoughts about their decision to capitulate to the DOJ’s demands?
• Is Interim President Mahoney questioning some elements of the deal that would interfere with the University’s independence and academic freedom?

Given the Board’s continued silence, it’s impossible to know the cause for the delay. Whatever the reason, we hope the Board will stand firm in rejecting any Voluntary Resolution Agreement.

Can the Board Take Any Action at All?

We sent a letter to Rector Sheridan on September 8 raising concerns about the Board’s composition. Under VA Code § 23.1-2201, the Board must have 17 members, at least 12 of whom are Virginia residents and at least 12 of whom are UVA alumni. As of August 4, 2025, when the Board appointed Paul Mahoney interim president, it had only 16 members, and just 11 were residents of Virginia. After the General Assembly rejected four appointees on August 28, the situation worsened: the Board now has 12 members instead of 17, only nine Virginia residents, and only nine alumni.

Why does this matter? Any action taken by a body that lacks the legal authority to act is at risk of being deemed ultra vires—void from the start. That includes the creation of the presidential search committee and any contract it might sign with a future president. These are unresolved and serious legal questions.

In our letter to the Rector, we wrote:

“…these deficiencies undermine the legitimacy of the Board’s actions in the eyes of the University community and reaffirm in particular that the current presidential search is on uncertain legal footing. Potential candidates for the UVA presidency or any other BOV-approved executive office should be rightly concerned that any actions taken by this Board while noncompliant with Virginia law may be invalid, including its hiring decisions. Moreover, it would seem to be per se malfeasance for Board members cognizant of the current BOV’s illegality to undertake actions that purport to bind the University. Actions undertaken by senior administrators without authorization from a properly constituted BOV would presumably fall into the same category. We have previously questioned the rush to appoint a new president in light of the lack of confidence in this BOV. (Letter to search committee members dated August 19, 2025) That this BOV, as constituted, is currently illegal under Virginia law is not reassuring.”

Since President Ryan’s forced resignation, we have urged the BOV to repair the breach of trust between it and the University community. They have ignored our pleas and those of other groups of stakeholders.

Now, we have asked the Board to comply with Virginia law or suspend its activities until its deficiencies are rectified and it is brought into compliance. We hope they listen.

View our letter to the Rector

Please Don’t Lose Hope – or Resolve

During the last 11 weeks, members of the University community have done everything we can to make the Board aware of our questions, concerns, and distress. Students, faculty, staff, and alumni have written letters, sent emails, made calls, held rallies, written resolutions, passed “no confidence” votes, organized protests, made signs, contacted elected officials, written op-eds, and talked with journalists. Here’s just one of many examples: a flyer we received from student leaders about a protest of the Board’s actions to be held this afternoon:

Consistent with what we’re all called to do as part of UVA’s Community of Trust, members of the University community have “[held] fast to notions of right and wrong, even when doing so comes at personal cost.” The work is exhausting, and we know how futile it can feel sometimes. Please don’t give up. Hold fast to notions of right and wrong, even when doing so feels pointless.

We promise you: it isn’t pointless.

The Board of Visitors may be in disarray, but we’ve never been prouder of the rest of our University community. Keep talking with one another, thinking strategically, coordinating your efforts, and conducting yourselves in ways that reflect positively on the University. You are all beacons of light and hope, and we appreciate you!

With appreciation and resolve,

Ann Brown (College ’74, Law ’77) and Chris Ford (Engineering ’87)

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