Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D) said in an interview that recent efforts by the Trump administration and by outgoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to influence policies and leadership of the state’s public colleges and universities amounted to political interference and deviated from long-standing practice by leaders of both parties.
She said Youngkin’s approach to appointing and influencing university governing boards destabilized institutions long considered among the nation’s strongest.
“I think it can’t be overstated the type of upheaval and the type of overstepping that frankly board members have seen, which is an aberration,” she said in an interview Friday with The Washington Post. “My expectation is that the boards are going to go back to doing right by the university.”
Spanberger said governors should stay out of universities’ business after making their board appointments. She said she will be ready to make her own appointments to vacant university board seats her first day in office in January. And she suggested reforms to the state’s oversight of its public higher education, including changing when and how board appointees are seated.
Youngkin’s office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Virginia’s public universities have been the subject of intense scrutiny from the Trump administration as it seeks to cut campus diversity programs that it sees as discriminatory. The University of Virginia — the state’s flagship and Spanberger’s alma mater — and George Mason University have been particular targets. At U-Va., Justice Department investigations culminated in the resignation of President James E. Ryan and a recent deal with the Trump administration.
Spanberger’s comments marked the second time in a week she criticized Youngkin’s actions overseeing Virginia’s universities. On Wednesday, she told CNN that Youngkin had not done enough to defend U-Va. from the Trump administration. That followed a week of contradictory letters from Spanberger, Youngkin, Ryanand Rachel Sheridan, the head of U-Va.’s board, over what led to Ryan’s departure and how the school should handle its search for his replacement.
Spanberger had asked the U-Va. board to pause its presidential search until she named five appointees to fill vacant seats. Youngkin responded by saying the search should continue and reminding her that he is still the governor until January.
Spanberger said she would make sure her board appointees’ goals are to better the universities they are overseeing. She plans to build out the commissions that suggest board members to the governor, groups that typically contain former and current board members, alumni and some university officials.
Youngkin often did not nominate the candidates those commissions recommended. At the Virginia Military Institute, for example, he made several picks that a conservative alumni group said it had suggested.
Spanberger also said she wants the appointees to be less political, and said she had heard from previous board members who told her that in years past, “You never knew who was appointed by which governor, because you were just there for the university — until now.”
Several current and former board members at various schools have told The Post that Youngkin or his office routinely weighed in on board decisions. When U-Va.’s board passed a resolution to dissolve that school’s DEI office, two people familiar with Youngkin’s thinking told The Post he had long planned to take more steps to slash DEI initiatives in the state’s public universities but waited until he had appointed enough members to university boards to have controlling majorities. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk on the record.
Spanberger said she would take a different approach and would largely just see board members at celebrations or on campus visits.
“The governor’s role is to appoint people,” she said. “That’s it. That’s how it’s always been, until recently.”
She said she wants Virginia’s legislature, where Democrats hold a majority, to change the process and timing of board appointments so there is a shorter gap between the governor’s appointments and the legislature’s confirmation. In the current system, governors often name their picks in the summer. Typically, lawmakers don’t vote on those appointments until January or February, once they are back in legislative session, though those appointees can vote at board meetings before they’re officially confirmed.
Someone who has advised several governors, including Youngkin, on appointments said the idea of closing the gap between appointment and confirmation would be difficult because of the part-time nature of Virginia’s legislature. Only making appointments when lawmakers are in town to confirm them would be a particular problem for colleges and universities, where a late-winter confirmation would install board members near the end of the academic year.
This person also said the matter was never a problem until Democrats in the Senate decided to block Youngkin’s appointments this year, suggesting that was the actual political interference. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The process has been the subject of a legal dispute over the past several months, after a subcommittee of Senate Democrats rejected 22 of Youngkin’s appointees and said those picks had to be immediately removed from the boards. Youngkin and Attorney General Jason S. Miyares (R) contended that the picks should be removed only if the full legislature voted to do so. The state Supreme Court just sided with the Senate Democrats.
Spanberger wants the General Assembly to affirm in statute the state Supreme Court’s ruling, that a subcommittee has the ability to fully reject gubernatorial appointments.
She also said she wants to ensure that university lawyers operate on behalf of the institution’s board, not at the behest of the state attorney general, who technically oversees them. Democrats have criticized Miyares for replacing university counsel personnel and asserting tighter control than had been the practice in the past. Spanberger said she hopes a change would make those lawyers less subject to the political whims of the state’s top prosecutor.
The attorney general position will soon be held by a Democrat, Jay Jones, who defeated Miyares in November’s election.
The post Spanberger blasts Youngkin for politicizing Va. college boards, vows changes appeared first on Washington Post.
