CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) The Department of Justice is pressuring the University of Virginia to part ways with President Jim Ryan or risk losing federal funding, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The university is at odds with the Trump administration and under investigation by the DOJ for continuing diversity, equity and inclusion practices despite the President’s mandate to back DEI initiatives.

According to the Times’ report, the DOJ is insistent that Ryan resign or be removed for the investigation to end.

“UVA is committed to complying with all federal laws and has been cooperating with the Department of Justice in the ongoing inquiries,” a school spokesperson told Cville Right Now. “The federal government’s support of the University is essential to continue the core mission of research, education, and clinical care.”

Ryan has been UVA’s president since August, 2018. Before that, he served as the dean of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard, another vaunted institution of higher learning that has found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump Administration.

In March, the Board of Visitors instructed the school to dismantle its central DEI office to comply with the Trump administrations instructions. At that time, some programs the school believed were still legally permissible were moved to other departments.

According to the Times, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office of Civil Rights, currently led by a pair of UVA Law graduates — assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights Harmeet Dhillon and deputy Gregory Brown — has called for Ryan to resign multiple times over the past month.

Brown was the attorney of record last year in UVA Jewish student Matan Goldstein’s lawsuit accusing the University for failing to adequately respond to the first-year’s complaints of antisemitic slurs and activities he reports happened to him on Grounds.

Ryan’s tenure at UVA has been talked about especially over the past month or two by competing student and alumni interests. The Jefferson Council, of which ousted Board of Visitors member Bert Ellis is a co-founder, is sponsoring an effort called RESETUVA outlining what it claims is a, “politicized and feckless leadership.”

Conversely, an alumni group calling themselves Wahoos4UVA has posted an online letter for support for leadership they say has the University going in “the right direction.” Incoming Class of 2026 student president and rising fourth-year Keoni Vega submitted an editorial in the Cavalier Daily – the school’s student-run newspaper – in early June supporting Ryan.

Ryan became UVA President in 2018, and his contract is set to expire in July 2028.