Trump Moves to Control UVA and GMU: Virginia Dems Push Back
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Trump's Higher Ed Power Play on Public Higher Ed: Virginia Dems Push Back
RICHMOND, VA — The leaders of the Democratic Party in the Virginia General Assembly spoke on their plans to confront moves by the Trump Administration to change the face of higher education at public colleges and universities in Virginia. The news conference included Virginia’s historic 66th Governor, L. Douglas Wilder.
Below: Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Senator Aaron Rouse and Virginia House Speaker Don Scott. Wilder speaks with journalist Nathaniel Cline.
Photos 📸 by Paulette Singleton
Gov. Wilder said the current situation was, “not about policy differences, it’s about a pattern, a coordinated effort to silence, punish and erase.”
Since Trump began his second term he has tried to control media organizations, law firms and public colleges and universities. The leverage Trump has over public colleges is obvious: Millions in federal funds. Trump has conducted a targeted rollback of all of the “racial reckoning” initiatives that were proposed after the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Trump’s efforts have attempted to brand diversity with inferiority.
Trump’s regime pressured University of Virginia President James Ryan in late June after continuously threatening to cut millions in public funding from the school. Trump has been aided by the silence of Virginia’s Republican Governor and Attorney General. Virginia has one of the best higher education systems in the U.S. — a point made frequently by Democrats yesterday.
“The question that we raise is: Why? Why do we have a Governor who sits silently, and an Attorney General who sits silently, and allow our institution of higher learning to be turned over to the federal government to be dismantled,” Delegate Luke Torian, who is also the Chairman of the powerful committee on Appropriations in the Virginia House of Delegates.
“They have dismantled the leadership at UVA. Now they’re working on dismantling the leadership at George Mason University,” Del. Torian added.
“Let’s call it what it is. These attacks on our universities are not about performance they’re about politics. Trump and Virginia Republicans are working overtime to manufacture a narrative — and frankly a crisis where there is none — just to lay the groundwork to fire or force out the heads of our most respected institutions. They’re not interested in facts they’re interesting in control,” said Delegate Kathy Tran.
Photos by Paulette Singleton 📸 Above: Virginia House Appropriations Chair Del. Luke Torian and Senator Aaron Rouse, former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Virginia House Speaker Don Scott and Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Senator Mamie Locke on July 24, 2025 in Richmond.
Above photo 📸 by Lauren Burke
The Trump Administration’s pressure campaigns on UVA and GMU have included allegations that the school’s President Greg Washington wasn't serious about confronting anti-semitism. But there was no evidence presented that such claims were true. A letter authored by a number of Jewish professors at GMU gave support to Washington. In fact, Virginia’s public higher education system has led in many categories.
“In terms of economic impact our public higher education system has a total economic footprint of $52.4 billion in our Commonwealth. Every dollar spent on public higher education results in additional $1.89 of state revenue and $25.59 of additional state gross domestic product,” Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell told reporters.
“UVA alone contributed $7.2 billion in GDP and $56 million annual state tax revenues. International students, which the Trump administration is threatening, contributed $807 million to Virginia's higher education learning institutions in 2023 and 24 academic year period. Virginia’s institutions collectively received about $3 billion in tuition and fee revenue and more than $2 billion in state general funds in 2023. This is a massive system that is currently under attack by the Trump administration, that our Republican colleagues in Virginia are refusing to do anything about. What’s happening today in our state is that the Republican Party is bowing down to their “dear leader” President Trump and refusing to do anything,” Leader Surovell added.
Democrats in the Virginia Senate led by Senators Surovell and L. Louise Lucas, sued the leaders of the boards at three universities. The first court hearing for the lawsuit occurred today.
Below: Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Senator Mamie Locke
The moves against public universities have been seen in other states as the Trump Administration attempts to eliminate diversity and inclusion. Trump’s anti-diversity efforts were seen in Virginia in 2023.
WHY YOUNGKIN’S SILENCE IS UNSURPRISING. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s chief diversity officer, Martin Brown, declared that, “DEI is dead,” at an event at Virginia Military Institute in April 2023. Youngkin defeated former Governor Terry McAuliffe in 2021 by focusing on what he described as “divisive concepts” in the classroom and the use of “critical race theory” even though there was no evidence it was a part of the curriculum in Virginia schools.
In March, the majority of a Board of Visitors put together by Gov. Youngkin presided over the removal of retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, who was the first Black superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute. The vote of VMI’s Board of Visitors was 10-6. VMI hadn’t accepted Black students until 1968 and didn’t accept women until they were forced to by a 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
TRUMP AND MAGA UNLIKELY TO LET UP. Once again in Virginia, the twin forces of education and race have long shaped the contours of power, opportunity, and resistance. From the colonial-era laws that criminalized teaching enslaved Africans to read, to the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case that sprang from Prince Edward County seventy-one years ago.
During massive resistance that followed officials closed public schools rather than follow the law that would have white and Black students educated together, a pattern of separate and unequal education based on race continued.
Virginia has stood at the crossroads of progress and retrenchment. Generations of Black Virginians have fought for the right to learn—founding schools during Reconstruction, launching legal battles during Jim Crow, and demanding equity in the era of Massive Resistance. Today’s debates over curriculum, equity, and school funding echo that legacy, revealing how deeply education and race remain intertwined in Virginia’s ongoing struggle for equity in education and classroom content.
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August 1: “Hand Off GMU” Rally
A rally is being planned by alumni and others to push back against the Trump Administration’s interference in higher education in Virginia.
Their announcement on Facebook reads: George Mason University is under political attack. 🚨 August 1st 2025 • Time TBA • Merten Hall, 4441 George Mason Blvd, Fairfax, VA 22030
A message on Facebook announcing the August 1 rally reads: All GMU Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Fairfax Community members are encouraged to join. Governor Glenn Youngkin and Donald Trump are attempting a hostile takeover of our university’s leadership, using recess appointments, partisan Board of Visitors picks, and DOJ investigations as political weapons. Their goal?
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