Trump administration forces president of UVA to resign

I don’t think Mr. Jefferson would have approved, if we’re going to get all originalist with it.

The University of Virginia’s president, James E. Ryan, has told the board overseeing the school that he will resign in the face of demands by the Trump administration that he step aside to help resolve a Justice Department inquiry into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to three people briefed on the matter.

For the leader of one of the nation’s most prominent public universities to take such an extraordinary step demonstrates President Trump’s success in harnessing the investigative powers of the federal government to accomplish his administration’s policy goals.

The New York Times reported on Thursday evening that the Justice Department had demanded Mr. Ryan’s resignation as a condition to settle a civil rights investigation into the school’s diversity practices.

In a letter sent on Thursday to the head of the board overseeing the university, Mr. Ryan said that he had planned to step down at the end of the next academic year but “given the circumstances and today’s conversations” he had decided, “with deep sadness,” to tender his resignation now, according to one of the people familiar with the matter who was briefed on the contents of the letter.

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it?

Time for another Sam Moyn piece about how everyone is being so hysterical.

Less facetiously, I don’t think people have quite adjusted to the fact that the second Trump administration is incomparably more radical than the first. In 2016 he didn’t expect to win, and he had no more idea of how the government actually works than the guys I went to high school with who were really into Sabbath.

I mean he probably still doesn’t himself, but all the normies are gone, and he’s surrounded by ideological freaks like Stephen Miller and Russell Vought, along with plenty straight up authoritarian grifters like Pam Bondi, who makes Bill Barr look like Archie Cox. ETA: As LeeEsq notes, another big factor in this radicalization is the four years spent obsessing about how the presidency and all its golden emoluments were STOLEN from him, by the UNFAIR RADICAL DEMOCRATS, who PERSECUTED HIM with PHONY trials and lawsuits. He’s nothing but a seething ball of narcissistic revenge fantasies now.

It’s going to be a really long three and half years.