CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) Jim Ryan will step down as University of Virginia president on July 11, then return to the school as a full professor in in the School of Law and the School of Education and Human Development at a later date, UVA announced Wednesday. In between, Ryan will be on sabbatical.

“We are deeply grateful for Jim’s tireless leadership and for all we have accomplished to advance this great University during his tenure,” the Board of Visitors said in the statement.

Ryan resigned Friday, under pressure from the Trump Administration, which said Ryan and the school failed, on multiple occasions, to provide confirmation that UVA was in compliance with federal laws and legal rulings that included the demand the university dismantle all of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Ryan feared that the federal government would withhold funds the school needed for research and scholarships if he stayed in the position he has held since 2018.

A special BOV meeting regarding a personnel matter was scheduled for Wednesday morning, but was cancelled because it was no longer needed, according to UVA deputy spokesperson Bethanie Glover.

It is unclear if the appointment to professor was contractually required. Glover declined to release Ryan’s contract, instructing Cville Right Now and WINA to request the public record through an official Freedom of Information Act request, which can take weeks.

Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis, UVA’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, will become acting president upon Ryan’s departure and until an interim president is named. The board will conduct a nationwide search for UVA’s next leader and will seek input from stakeholders across the UVA community.

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the university’s famed Rotunda on Friday, some supporting Ryan and others voicing their concern at perceived overreach by the federal government for pressuring out a university president instead of letting the board of visitors decide his fate.

Ryan released a letter to the university community after the news broke Friday, saying, in part, “I am inclined to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply in this University. But I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job.  To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld.”