The University of Virginia is the fourth university, and the first public one, to agree to a settlement with the Trump administration over allegations of discrimination.
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The University of Virginia has reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice that will pause pending investigations in exchange for assurances from the public flagship that it will not engage in unlawful practices around admissions, hiring, programming and more.
The DOJ announced the settlement in a Wednesday afternoon news release.
As part of the deal, UVA agreed to follow a July memo from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that bars the use of race in hiring and admissions practices as well as scholarship programs. UVA will be required to provide “relevant information and data” to the DOJ, according to the news release.
While the recent investigations into allegedly illegal diversity, equity and inclusion programs have been paused, that doesn’t mean those probes have been altogether closed. However, the DOJ will close the investigation “if UVA completes its planned reforms prohibiting DEI,” officials said.
“This notable agreement with the University of Virginia will protect students and faculty from unlawful discrimination, ensuring that equal opportunity and fairness are restored,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and a UVA alum, said in a statement. “We appreciate the progress that the university has made in combatting antisemitism and racial bias, and other American universities should be on alert that the Justice Department will ensure that our federal civil rights laws are enforced for every American, without exception.”
The settlement comes nearly four months after former UVA president James Ryan stepped down abruptly, reportedly under DOJ pressure to resign as part of an effort to resolve investigations.
UVA officials released a statement as well as the text of the agreement on Wednesday.
“We intend to continue our thorough review of our practices and policies to ensure that we are complying with all federal laws,” Interim President Paul Mahoney wrote. “We will also redouble our commitment to the principles of academic freedom, ideological diversity, free expression, and the unyielding pursuit of ‘truth, wherever it may lead,’ as Thomas Jefferson put it. Through this process, we will do everything we can to assure our community, our partners in state and federal government, and the public that we are worthy of the trust they place in us and the resources they provide us to advance our education, research, and patient care mission.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the deal “transformative” in a post on X.
“The Trump Administration is not backing down in our efforts to root out DEI and illegal race preferencing on our nation’s campuses,” McMahon wrote. “A renewed commitment to merit is a critical step for our institutions to once again become beacons of truth-seeking and excellence.”
UVA is one of several institutions to reach an agreement with the Trump administration in recent months, but the first public university to do so. Previously Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University all agreed to deals with the federal government after the Trump administration froze federal research funding over alleged civil rights violations.
While UVA reached a settlement with the federal government, it has rejected other proposals such as the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would have required institutions to agree to tuition freezes, caps on international students and campuswide assessments of viewpoint diversity, among other demands, in order to receive preferential treatment for federal research funding. UVA was one of nine institutions originally asked to join the compact, though none of the original group, nor others invited later, have announced they will sign the proposal.
