DEI Critics Claim Déjà Vu in Selection of New President for University of Virginia

Less than a week after being selected, the incoming president of the University of Virginia is being panned by some conservatives over since-deleted entries on his curriculum vitae touting his record of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.The backlash is unexpected, given that Scott Beardsley was named to the prestigious position on Friday by an all-Republican Board of Visitors to replace the former university president who was forced out over his DEI record last summer.The appointment of Mr. Beardsley, a former dean of the university’s Darden business school, comes at “a moment when institutions of higher education across the nation are facing complex questions regarding academic and institutional independence, research funding changes, a shifting landscape for collegiate athletics, and many others,” reads an announcement on the university’s public-facing website.It says the selection was made after “the board identified Beardsley’s experience leading large, multifaceted organizations and managing competing priorities as key attributes.”But some conservatives are objecting to the selection of a man whose résumé “once highlighted that he hired a chief diversity officer, launched a racial equity and inclusion group, and oversaw initiatives that increased the share of women and minorities” at the Darden School, reports The Washington Post.“It defies belief that Governor Youngkin and his board would elevate a DEI ideologue like Scott Beardsley,” a conservative analyst, Stu Smith, for the City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute, told the Post. “The installation of President Beardsley suggests UVA protects DEI ideology over people and process.”In a series of postings on X, Mr. Smith complains that Mr. Beardsley “built out DEI infrastructure at UVA’s business school, created a senior diversity leadership role, launched ‘racial equity and inclusion’ working groups, and has said he even teaches a class on diversity and stakeholder style business ethics.”The selection also has drawn the ire of a former executive director of the Jefferson Council, a group of conservative UVA alumni, who told the Post he was “baffled” that the board would select Mr. Beardsley just months after shutting down all the school’s DEI offices.“The Board of Visitors has acted to shut down diversity, equity and inclusion at U-Va., at least the bureaucracy,” he was quoted as saying. “But then they approved this selection of someone who enthusiastically put DEI in place at Darden.”The university says Mr. Beardsley’s name was put forward by a special committee after an “exhaustive process” and that the selection was unanimously approved by the Board of Visitors, all of whose voting members were chosen by the outgoing Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin.The position became vacant after the previous president, James A. Ryan, was forced to resign in response to a Department of Justice civil rights investigation into the university’s DEI practices.In a 12-page letter describing the circumstances of his resignation, Mr. Ryan accused the Justice Department of threatening to pull millions of dollars in funding for research and financial aid if he remained in his post.Mr. Beardsley, for his part, has at least one defender in the current president of the Jefferson Council, Joel Gardner, who pointed out that Mr. Ryan had directed all of the university’s deans to implement DEI policies.“You probably had to do it to survive,” he told the Post.

DEI Critics Claim Déjà Vu in Selection of New President for University of Virginia

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