Category Archives: Administration

Blockbuster: Ryan Solicited Urgent Meeting with Jones Prosecutor

Posted on April 15, 2024 by | 7 comments

by James A. Bacon

Three days before withholding a state-ordered report looking into a 2022 mass shooting at the University of Virginia that killed three students and wounded two, UVA officials set up a meeting with the prosecutor of the alleged killer, The Daily Progress reports.

In a statement issued November 17, 2023, President Jim Ryan and Rector Robert Hardie justified keeping the report’s findings secret by quoting the prosecutor, Albemarle County Commonwealth Attorney Jim Hingeley, as thanking the University for not complicating the prosecution of the accused.

“After conferring with counselors and Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley, we have decided that we need to wait until after the criminal proceedings to release further information,” said Ryan and Hardie.

Left unsaid in the statement is the fact that Ryan initiated the meeting with Hingeley, using University Police Chief Tim Longo as an intermediary. Longo, who worked closely with Charlottesville and Albemarle County law enforcement authorities on safety issues affecting the university, made a logical go-between. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Transparency

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UVA Report Finds No Pay Inequity for Black, Hispanic Profs

Posted on April 11, 2024 by | 6 comments

Adjusted salary differentials for tenure/tenure track faculty.

by James A. Bacon

The Racial Equity Task Force, a 2020 document that transformed governance at the University of Virginia, listed 12 top priorities for addressing the legacy of historical racism. One was to address “serious challenges to racial equity in staff hiring, wages, retention, promotion, and procurement” by auditing where policies and procedures might be “reinforcing entrenched inequities.”

The report cited no actual evidence of disparities in pay, and the authors did not assert that they existed. In a report that lambasted UVA as “an inaccessible, rich, ‘white’ institution,” pay inequities were just assumed to occur and needed to be documented.

Well, last year the Ryan administration hired the DCI Consulting Group to evaluate “pay equity” for UVA faculty based on gender and race. The results, based on 2022 compensation, were made available to UVA January 5 and, sure enough, pay inequities were found…. for non-tenured Asian-American faculty.

Remarkably, adjusted for their level in the academic hierarchy, seniority and other variables affecting compensation, Black professors who are tenured or on the tenure track were f0und to earn 3% more than their peers, Hispanic professors 3.4% more, and Whites 1.6% less — although DCI did not deem the differences to be “statistically significant.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Race, Equity and Diversity

What Do All Those DEI Employees Do?

Posted on March 27, 2024 by | 8 comments

A reader wrote this letter in response to our article highlighting Open the Books’ finding of 235 employees and interns in UVA’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bureaucracy. The author asked to remain anonymous. — JAB 

Thanks for sharing this article. I am not surprised at the number of DEI positions at UVA. We have long known that there are more and more people employed at UVA or any university who do not teach, conduct research, garden, cook food, or attend to maintenance. A good chunk of the rise in college costs goes to the increase in the position that are loosely administrative. When I got to UVA in 1995 we had a dean, three or four associate deans and a few counselors in the School of Education. Today we still have a dean, 5 associate deans and at least 15 directors, some of whom do not hold faculty positions. Some of these new positions are related to fund raising development, grant administration and other outreach functions. In 1995 we had 75 to 100 full-time faculty and about 2,000 students. We still have the same number of faculty and students, but we built a new building to hold the administrators.

As I was reading the article and clicking on the links I kept wondering just what do these people do. I suspect they attend a lot of meetings and write a lot of reports, but do any of the students benefit? I did a quick check in 2009 about 8% of the student body was African American, in 2021 about 6%. Clearly these folks are not succeeding at making the place more diverse. The percentage of Hispanic students has ticked up by 2% and Asians by 7%. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Race, Equity and Diversity

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Why Can’t The University of Virginia Tell The Truth About Its $1 Billion DEI Plan?

Posted on March 22, 2024 by | 6 comments

University spokesperson Brian Coy misled national media about how much DEI was costing students and taxpayers. Why won’t UVA own its $1 billion plan?

by Adam Andrzejewski

“…a call for us to be the very best version of ourselves and to live our stated commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion to become a better university.”
Dr. James Ryan, President, University of Virginia, September 11, 2020

Recently, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that the University of Virginia (UVA) employed 235 people in roles related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) costing taxpayers some $20 million for salaries and benefits last year.

Our report broke in the Washington Examiner and made national news. It hit multiple primetime shows on Fox News, the nightly news on the nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates of Sinclair Broadcast Group, a retweet by Elon Musk, and a hearing by the U.S. House subcommittee on Education and the Workforce. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Race, Equity and Diversity, Transparency

Who Counts As a DEI Employee?

Posted on March 22, 2024 by | Leave a comment

by James A. Bacon

Earlier this month Open the Books, an organization dedicated to government spending transparency, released a study concluding that the University of Virginia employs 235 people, including interns, in roles relating to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at a payroll cost of roughly $20 million a year. Characterizing Open the Books’ numbers as “wildly inflated,” UVA officials disputed how the group counted someone as a DEI employee. Open the Books fired back yesterday with another broadside, defending its numbers and faulting UVA’s own claim that the University has only 55 DEI employees costing $5.8 million.

In June 2023, the Ryan administration presented numbers to the Board of Visitors that provided the following breakdown:

While Open the Books has been fully transparent, going so far as to publish a list of the employees, titles and salaries it is counting, UVA has not reciprocated with a list of its own. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Race, Equity and Diversity, Transparency

Assigning Extra Credit for Attending Pro-Hamas Event

Posted on March 14, 2024 by | 1 comment

Tessa Farmer

by James A. Bacon

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion staff at the University of Virginia downplayed concerns about Tessa Farmer, an anthropology professor who last fall offered extra credit to students to attend a Students for Justice in Palestine-organized teach-in, reports The Washington Examiner this morning.

The purpose of the event was to show solidarity with Palestinians resisting Israeli “occupation” and demand that the United States withdraw its support for Israel. 

“Internal emails show DEI staffers were apparently unperturbed by this professor’s promotion of a Students for Justice in Palestine event despite the group’s radical rhetoric,” the newspaper quoted Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of federal-spending watchdog OpenTheBooks, as saying. OpenTheBooks worked with the Examiner on the Freedom of Information Act requests that recovered the emails. The group also collaborated with the Jefferson Council to publish recent findings that UVA spends $20 million on salary and benefits for DEI staff at UVA. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Freedom of speech and expression, Leftist orthodoxy

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University of Virginia Spends $20 Million On 235 DEI Employees, With Some Making $587,340 Per Year

Posted on March 5, 2024 by | 16 comments

It takes tuition payments from nearly 1,000 undergraduates just to pay their base salaries!


The Jefferson Council is reposting this article published by Open the Books, a nonprofit group dedicated to transparency in government spending. We are pleased to say that we provided assistance in the research and fact-checking.  Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski will speak at the Jefferson Council 3rd annual meeting April 9. Register now to attend. — JAB

The University of Virginia (UVA) has at least 235 employees under its “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)” banner — including 82 students — whose total cost of employment is estimated at $20 million. That’s $15 million in cash compensation plus an additional 30 percent for the annual cost of their benefits.

In contrast, last Friday, the University of Florida dismissed its DEI bureaucracy, saving students and taxpayers $5 million per year. The university terminated 13 full-time DEI positions and 15 administrative faculty appointments. Those funds have been re-programmed into a “faculty recruitment fund” to attract better people who actually teach students.

No such luck for learning at Virginia’s flagship university – founded by Thomas Jefferson no less. UVA has a much deeper DEI infrastructure. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Finances, Race, Equity and Diversity

How to Model Inclusiveness

Posted on March 5, 2024 by | 10 comments

Here’s a schematic of the University of Virginia’s “Inclusive Competency Model” as found in an Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights document on the University website.

That’s what you get when you turn over management of organizational culture to an army of bureaucrats.

Here’s the Jefferson Council alternative:

No bureaucrats needed. Just a clear message from the University president, provost, and deans.

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Posted in Administration

Look What UVA Is Hiding

Posted on January 5, 2024 by | 9 comments

by James A. Bacon

Acting on behalf of The Jefferson Council, Walter Smith has filed a complaint in Henrico County against the University of Virginia, seeking a remedy for its refusal to supply documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Smith serves in a volunteer capacity as chair of the Council’s research committee.

The suit alleges 14 instances in which the University’s FOIA staff improperly denied emails and other documents to the Council. Smith’s FOIA requests asked for documents that would shed light on the inner workings of the University’s administrative decision-making process.

The cases highlighted in the complaint illustrate two main themes. First, UVA’s FOIA lawyers have stretched the presidential “working papers” exemption beyond its original intent of protecting the university president’s personal deliberations. Second, the lawyers did not apply privacy protections to Bert Ellis, a Board of Visitors member who was widely perceived as a threat to the university status quo.

“UVa’s FOIA process seems designed to delay and discourage and deny inquiries that may be embarrassing to the Ryan administration,” said Smith. “The administration says it’s all for open inquiry. These are matters of legitimate interest to the public. It seems hypocritical to hide so much.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Transparency

What Does UVA Need in a University President?

Posted on January 4, 2024 by | 10 comments

by James A. Bacon

For anyone following governance issues at the University of Virginia, Bill Ackman’s Twitter broadside against Harvard’s now dethroned president Claudine Gay and its governing board is must reading. Ackman, the hedge-fund manager-turned-activist who spearheaded Gay’s overthrow, identifies serious systemic problems at Harvard, from its ponderous DEI bureaucracy to a tuition policy that prices out the middle class.

Every one of the pathologies he describes at Harvard plays out at UVA (although, one can argue, in diluted form). Little of this is new to readers of the Jefferson Council blog, for we have been documenting the problems for two years now. But Ackman raises one point that we have not considered: What qualifications should a governing board look for in a university president?

The question might seem academic, but UVa President Jim Ryan is surely feeling nervous these days. As dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education before ascending to his position at UVA, he is a product of the same hyper-progressive Harvard culture as Gay. And Liz Magill, the University of Pennsylvania president who was sacked after her abysmal testimony before Congress, was Ryan’s hand-picked provost for UVa before she moved on to the Ivy League. Ryan is less politically tone deaf, to be sure, he is popular among UVA students and faculty, and he has said all the right things regarding free speech and institutional neutrality. No one in authority has publicly called for his resignation. Even the Jefferson Council, as critical as it has been of UVA under Ryan’s tenure, has taken no position on whether he should stay or go.

Nevertheless, it is worth asking the question, in light of the presidential defenestrations at Harvard and Penn, what should an elite university look for in a president? Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Governance