What Madness Is This?
Having bragged on national cable news that “DEI is done” at the University of Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin now is asking for the resignation of the man most determined to ensure that DEI is, in fact, laid to rest.
Youngkin is worried that Board of Visitors member Bert Ellis’ “outspoken and sometimes combative manner,” to use The Washington Post’s words, could undermine his efforts to reshape the university.
Ellis has declined to oblige the governor, and the two men are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the matter.
The Post cites two unidentified sources for its story. I don’t know who those sources are, but it’s safe to describe the piece as part of a larger effort to neutralize Ellis, who was the object of a previous smear campaign in 2022 after Youngkin nominated him to take the lead against DEI, administrative bloat, and rising tuition.
The tip-off is the Post’s reference to April 2023 videos in which Ellis harangued two University Police Department officers for their invisible presence on the Corner. The Post reporters obtained the police-cam videos through a highly specific Freedom of Information Act request that could only have been fed to them from a source familiar with the incident. In a sure sign that the newspaper is a willing tool in the effort to discredit Ellis, the reporters left out critical exculpatory context. (More on the Post article in a follow-up post.)
Ellis narrowly survived an effort by Virginia Democrats to derail his appointment two years ago after a character-assassination campaign depicted him as racist, homophobic and a physical danger to the UVA community. Since then, he has emerged as the one member of the Board of Visitors willing to openly confront Northam appointees who, until this year, controlled the board. In one showdown with Rector Robert Hardie, he insisted that the board discuss openly, not in closed session, the wave of antisemitism arising from pro-Palestinian rhetoric and demonstrations on Grounds. More recently, he has been voting solo against new spending requests until the Ryan administration presented a budget with major spending cuts and tuition relief.
Excepting only the confrontation with Hardie, Ellis has been restrained and respectful during board meetings. Outside the board, he has been blunt, plain-spoken and colorfully quotable. In a recent interview with The Daily Progress about the University, he said that “every aspect of DEI is to be ripped out, shredded and terminated.”
Youngkin and Ellis aren’t far apart in the kinds of changes they would like to see for UVA: tighter budgets, tuition cuts, more free speech, more intellectual diversity, and an end to the prevalent oppressor/oppressed paradigm as expressed in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion programs, among other goals. But Ellis’ aggressive style presents a stark contrast with Youngkin’s non-confrontational approach.
Given the short time left in Youngkin’s tenure, playing by Marquis-of-Queensbury rules will fail. The Governor’s appointees to the board achieved no meaningful change in the first three years of his term in office. Although the board finally began asserting its authority in March — after the third tranche of Youngkin’s nominees were approved by the Democratic-dominated General Assembly, cementing his 13-to-17 board majority — it still has yet to accomplish anything tangible to change UVA’s business model or campus culture. Of the nine months remaining, Hardie, a Northam holdover and staunch ally of President Jim Ryan, will remain rector through June 30. That will leave six months for the Governor’s appointees to work unimpeded on his priorities.
The Board’s vote earlier this month to abolish DEI and racial preferences at UVA was a significant step. The vote was unanimous but only because the University was threatened with the loss of hundreds of millions of federal research dollars.
The devil is in the details. Someone has to disentangle DEI from admissions, scholarships, fellowships, hiring, promotions, training, student orientation, housing, disciplinary issues, research, the curriculum, and other aspects of University life. Board members are not equipped to engage in that level of micromanagement. Consequently, the Ryan administration will be in charge of working out the details as well as the pace of change.
Ryan is being asked, in effect, to dismantle the very system of “inclusive excellence” informed by a social-justice agenda that he has been putting into place since becoming University president in 2018. The board ordered him to report back in 30 days. If he slow-walks the DEI reforms, someone will have to be willing to hold him accountable and not accept a lot of excuses and argle-bargle.
All 17 board members will have been appointed by Youngkin by July 1. But there is no guarantee his appointees will control the agenda more than six months. An election of Democrat UVA-alumna Abigail Spanberger as governor this fall could bring Youngkin’s reform efforts to a screeching halt if she asks his appointees to resign.
Ellis is one of the few — if not the only — board member in a position to keep close tabs on developments at UVA. Although his main residence is located in South Carolina, he spends 10 days a month in Charlottesville, tending to the White Spot restaurant on the Corner, which he co-owns and manages, and staying engaged with faculty, students, staff, and members of the community. He attends UVA events, meets people for coffee, and has random encounters at the White Spot. As Ellis has noted in the past, “You can’t know the university by flying in for two days four times a year.”
Ellis taken it upon himself to lead the resistance to the Ryan administration. Virginia state law prohibits three or more board members from conversing at a time without triggering the open-meeting law, which requires meetings to be advertised and made open to the public. That means making a lot of one-on-one phone calls. It’s a very time-consuming process, and not one that board members with full-time jobs can readily take on. Ellis has described his role as being the “whip” — the guy who tries to coax agreement among dissident board members behind the scenes.
In today’s vicious political environment, any board member with a high profile makes himself or herself a potential candidate for doxxing or canceling. Ellis doesn’t care. He’s already had his character assassinated. He’s willing to endure being the hate object of UVA’s leftists.
Who else is willing to play the role of whip and change maker? Who else on the board will push aggressively for change against the very same leadership that built the DEI regime at UVA and remains deeply committed to it?
Youngkin is making a huge mistake by asking for Ellis’ resignation. He’s undermining his own agenda. And if he carries through, he’ll have to answer a very prickly question: why was he willing to give the axe to the board member opposing DEI but unwilling to defenestrate the UVA officials who implemented it?
James A. Bacon is the founder of Bacon’s Rebellion and a contributing editor with The Jefferson Council.
