Exclusive: DOJ Opens Civil Rights Investigation Into University Of Virginia’s DEI Regime
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the University of Virginia over its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) regime, which it has attempted to secretly continue despite a directive from its board to eradicate the ideology.
The Justice Department confirmed its investigation into the school to America First Legal (AFL), The Federalist learned, after the group sent a 98-page letter to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, a UVA alumna, on Friday detailing how UVA is attempting to disguise its DEI infrastructure in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
The university’s Board of Visitors voted to dismantle DEI earlier this year, but actually executing that directive is left to the very people who injected the ideology into the school in the first place, as The Federalist reported.
“UVA has not dismantled its DEI framework — it has merely rebranded it to evade legal scrutiny. What the law prohibits, UVA simply renamed,” AFL counsel Megan Redshaw told The Federalist. “We are grateful the DOJ has taken our findings seriously and is taking action to hold UVA accountable. No institution that receives taxpayer funds is above the law.”
After the UVA board’s vote, the Department of Justice sent an April 28 letter to the school’s president, rector, and legal counsel requiring that the school prove it was dismantling the DEI regime they had built in order to be in compliance with civil rights law.
The department pointed to racialized admissions schemes and preferences made unconstitutional by the Supreme Court as well as an executive order signed by President Donald Trump aimed at dismantling “‘DEI’ apparatuses and instruments of discrimination based on race, skin color, ethnicity, national origin, and other impermissible, immutable characteristics.”
As AFL pointed out, UVA did not comply with the directive, but rather said it had “made progress” on eradicating DEI, and that “additional work remains to be done.” The school also started a working group in order to “promote open inquiry, constructive conversation across differences, and development of a civic mindset,” but did not say how its DEI regime had been dismantled.
Rather, like many other schools, the school decided to get rid of some websites and mentions of DEI but keep the ideology functioning full steam ahead in the background.
“UVA has rebranded its DEI programs using euphemisms like ‘Inclusive Excellence,’ ‘Advocacy and Opportunity,’ ‘Community Engagement,’ ‘Strategic Wellness and Opportunity,’ ‘Inclusion and Belonging,’ and ‘Viewpoint Diversity,’ while continuing to apply race-, sex-, and other identity-based preferences in violation of federal law,” AFL stated.
The school also simply rebranded job titles, as opposed to firing the DEI staff (many of whom maintain pronouns in their professional biographies). Rachel Spraker, who used to be called the “Assistant VP for Diversity and Inclusion,” but is now the “Assistant VP for Equity and Inclusive Excellence,” once said that “white people are actually dying from whiteness too.”
The Darden School of Business at UVA similarly rebranded its DEI page, but maintains scholarships that restrict eligibility for sex, race, and other characteristics backed by a $125 million endowment for candidates they claim to be “diverse” — which typically means nonwhite and not male, and has nothing to do with differing perspectives.
Darden further works with organizations outside the school in order to award $20,000 to an “LGBTQ+” candidate who will promote “LGBTQ+” issues.
Similar programs exist at the school of medicine to choose candidates based on racial or sexual preferences, including the “Peter Page Scholarship,” which gives $10,000 to “highly motivated gay male students.”
The examples are endless.
It is unclear if anyone in Virginia will hold the university accountable. Thus far, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va., has not called for the removal of UVA president Jim Ryan, who was one of the primary forces behind injecting DEI in the first place, as The Federalist reported. If Youngkin told the university’s board to fire Ryan, they would almost certainly do it.
Breccan F. Thies is a correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.
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