As Republican leaders moved to root out what they have criticized as liberal ideology at the University of Virginia, some conservative appointees to its board texted privately about ending “chemical and surgical mutilation” for transgender youth at its hospitals and undoing “regimes of racial classification” in its classrooms, according to nearly 1,000 pages of text messages reviewed by The Washington Post.
The board members coordinated frequently with Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) or his top aides in nearly every major debate at the flagship university in Charlottesville in the past year — which some observers have described as an unusual level of involvement by the state leader. The conservative appointees also spoke in candid, sometimes inflammatory terms about the university’s then-president, James E. Ryan, his supporters and diversity policies.
“This is war!” Stephen Long wrote on April 17 to a fellow board member about a professor who sought to preserve diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Board members have often been reluctant to speak publicly on university matters outside of meetings. But the texts, exchanged between June 2023 and mid-December by board members and top university officials, offer an unfiltered account of the body’s inner workings as it rolled back some gender affirming care, dissolved the university’s DEI office and responded to several investigations by the Trump administration, among other changes at U-Va. Ryan resigned in June amid the intensifying scrutiny.
At times, the texts show tension between conservative, moderate and more liberal board members, including one who referred to his fellow board members as “crazies.”
The messages, obtained through Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act by Richmond-based author Jeff Thomas and provided to The Post, also underscore the growing pressure universities are facing from the Trump administration and Republican state officials as conservatives seek to eliminate what they view as progressive indoctrination of American campuses.
Thomas has previously submitted FOIA requests to U-Va. on other board member texts and about university admissions. He said he asked for texts exchanged with rector Rachel Sheridan and other top officials in November. He sued the university last month after it did not provide some messages in a timely manner, and a judge ordered their release.
The university and almost all board members mentioned in this story declined or did not respond to requests for comment.
Youngkin spokesperson Rob Damschen said the involvement of the governor and his aides were “essential to responsible oversight.”
“It is appropriate, necessary and expected for board members across state agencies, departments and governing bodies to interact and seek counsel from the Governor’s Cabinet members,” he said. “Virginians should expect nothing less.”
Youngkin’s involvement
Many of the texts reviewed by The Post were sent when the 17-person U-Va. board was overwhelmingly composed of Youngkin appointees, with a small number of seats held by picks of his Democratic predecessor Ralph Northam.
Youngkin has not often spoken publicly about his involvement in the university over the past year. But the texts offer new insight into communications between the board and governor.
On Feb. 16, Robert Hardie, then the board’s rector and a large Democratic donor, sent a text to Sheridan, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis who would succeed him as board chair in July. Trump had signed an executive order on Jan. 29 restricting some forms of gender transition care for youth, and the U-Va. board would soon consider a resolution on the matter.
“I think GY and JM are calling everyone to lobby them,” he wrote, referring to Youngkin and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R). Miyares had issued guidance advising university-affiliated hospitals to adhere to the Trump order.
On Feb. 21, the board voted to stop providing gender-affirming care to new patients while allowing care for existing patients to continue.
But some wanted the board to move further. Youngkin told another board member, Paul Manning, a friend and donor who gave $100 million to the school in 2023, that the board’s resolution might not be enough, Hardie said in another text to Sheridan.
“WH targeting us potentially if we don’t reverse GA care,” Hardie wrote in the March 2 exchange, recounting his conversation with Manning and referencing gender-affirming care. He said two other Youngkin board appointees would call the governor.
Weeks later, ahead of a vote to dissolve the DEI office, Hardie wrote in a text that he had asked Youngkin general counsel Richard Cullen to speak to a group Hardie called the “crazies” on the board pushing swift changes to diversity-related efforts and the university’s budget.
After the board’s vote passed, texts from Hardie and others described additional conversations with top Youngkin aides.
“Spoke with Aimee for a while last night and we have a strategy,” board member David Webb wrote on March 9, referring to Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera.
Webb did not respond to a request for comment about what they discussed.
The texts suggest a degree of involvement by the governor’s administration in university operations that is atypical in modern Virginia history, according to multiple former board members. In addition to gender-affirming care and DEI efforts, board members and Ryan talked with Youngkin or aides about the university’s health system and the behavior of other members, records show.
Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D), who takes office Jan. 17, has said she does not believe governors should involve themselves in university operations beyond making board appointments. After the election, Spanberger had asked the U-Va. board to halt its search for a president until she could appoint new members, but the body hired a new leader in December.
The released texts, however, don’t show communications between the board and Youngkin on some other matters that have generated scrutiny.
For example, there are no references to the governor as the Trump administration increased its scrutiny of U-Va. and Ryan in June, leading the school’s leader to step down. But exchanges suggest involvement by the Youngkin administration in university operations in the immediate aftermath.
On July 1, John Harris — former chief financial officer of the Carlyle Group, where Youngkin was once co-chief executive — began a term on the U-Va. board. After a welcoming message from Sheridan, now the board’s rector, Harris texted her about a planned meeting with university officials, and added, “I also spoke with the Governor regarding the matter we discussed.”
The next day, Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis, the university’s chief operating officer and briefly its acting president, texted Sheridan to say they were waiting for Youngkin and Miyares to sign off on a settlement with Ryan after his resignation announcement. If that happened, Davis wrote on July 2, the board could cancel an emergency meeting due to start 20 minutes later.
The meeting was canceled shortly thereafter.
‘He’s such a snake’
The messages reveal board members hurling personal insults and calling for wholesale change when discussing university policy.
On Oct. 13, 2024, for example, then-board member Bert Ellis sent a link to an article headlined “Destroying the higher education machine” and wrote, “This is what we need to do.”
Ellis had courted controversy before and during his time on the board, including a 2020 incident where he had planned to use a razor blade to remove a sign hung on a student’s dorm room door. After joining the board in 2022, he described a “battle royale for the soul of UVA” in texts with two board members.
In the newly-released texts, Ellis told Sheridan last January he thought Ryan should have been fired. Ellis was later removed from the board by Youngkin after his rhetoric drew criticism, The Post reported at the time.
During the February discussion on gender-affirming care, Paul Harris, a former state delegate, offered language for a board resolution in a text to Sheridan. The proposed language, he said, was sensitive to the emotional challenges of receiving the care but also insisted upon “evidence-based medicine.”
While the language used the term “gender affirming care,” he wrote he would not object to also describing it as “chemical and surgical mutilation,” mirroring language from the Trump executive order.
In an email Thursday, Harris wrote that he had been concerned about complying with changing federal standards and wanted UVA Health to stop providing the care “in the least offensive and most respectful manner possible.”
In another exchange, board member Douglas Wetmore — who called Hardie a “clown” in another message — texted Sheridan on March 1, ahead of the vote on the DEI office, and said he believed the board was not moving aggressively enough on several fronts. “We need to move decisively at UVA to ban DEI and all forms and regimes of racial classification,” he wrote.
Long, a physician, criticized Ryan’s handling of the university’s hospital system in other messages.
“He’s such a snake — thinks I don’t know everything!!” he wrote on April 18.
Some Youngkin appointees expressed reservations about the pace of change sought by other members, though. Sheridan at times appeared as a moderating force in several internal disputes, taking calls and texts as some conservative members butted heads with Hardie.
The texts also show the toll serving on the board was taking on Sheridan, who joined the body in 2023 and chaired its audit committee before becoming rector. After a March 6 meeting, she wrote to the faculty representative to the board that she was, “Very irritated by arrogance and ignorance (and barely veiled misogyny).”
Hardie, who appeared to have a friendship with Sheridan, also sent inflammatory messages. He grew increasingly frustrated with a group he called the “four horsemen, or should I say four horses asses,” often asking for help from Sheridan to address them.
“This has a lot of MAGA/DOGE written all over it,” Hardie wrote to Sheridan March 5.
Hardie messaged Sheridan about keeping the head of the conservative alumni group, the Jefferson Council, off the board, the texts show.
Hardie declined to comment on the exchanges.
The rector generally avoided explicit political commentary in texts seen by The Post, though she occasionally revealed her views.
In August, after state Senate Democrats rejected Youngkin’s appointment of Jim Donovan to the U-Va. board, citing concerns about his qualifications and intentions, Sheridan texted Donovan directly.
“I hope this backfires politically,” she wrote Aug. 28, “and reveals them to be the extremists they are.”
On Thursday, Sheridan said in a statement that the text didn’t accurately reflect her views on the lawmakers.
“I respect the General Assembly’s authority on these matters but share the frustration of those four individuals that were summarily rejected without the benefit of consideration of their merit and the value these individuals have given and could have continued to give to the university community,” she wrote.
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