A State Senate committee voted on Tuesday to reject seven Glenn Youngkin nominees to boards of visitors at UVA, VMI and George Mason, though it appears that the seven will be able to continue to serve until the full Virginia General Assembly reconvenes in January.
I’m relying here on reporting from Bacon’s Rebellion, which quotes Ken Cuccinelli, who was appointed to the UVA Board of Visitors by Youngkin in March, saying “he expects to continue serving on the University of Virginia Board of Visitors until early next year when the full General Assembly votes on his nomination. He anticipates being rejected then, at which point he will step down.”
There does seem to be a tiny sliver of room here for a legal challenge from Senate Democrats should the seven appointees rejected by the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee continue on their boards.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, noted in a letter to the heads of Virginia’s public universities sent after the committee vote that the state code requires all governing body members to be confirmed by the General Assembly.
“The General Assembly takes seriously its oversight responsibilities regarding Virginia’s public universities,” Surovell wrote, adding that “should any Board of Visitors fail to exercise appropriate independent judgment or allow external influences to compromise their fiduciary duties, the General Assembly will not hesitate to examine the situation and take whatever legislative action may be necessary.”
The activity on this matter this week – almost certainly a day late and a dollar short, given the legal and political realities – is what passes for a response to Youngkin systematically building up MAGA supermajorities on boards of visitors at state schools using his appointment power.
Seriously, Democrats have controlled both houses of the General Assembly for the past 18 months, and they’re just now doing something?
A June 5 letter sent to UVA Board of Visitors members from the UVA chapter of the American Association of University Professors notes that state law makes it clear that boards of visitors “shall at all times be under the control of the General Assembly.”
“This provision underscores the General Assembly’s ultimate authority over Virginia’s public institutions of higher education and the Boards of Visitor’s responsibility to operate within the legislature’s framework, not that of the executive branch,” the June 5 letter says.
Our elected Democrats in the General Assembly should have taken the stand on BOV governance that they’re taking now a little sooner, but, that is what it is now.
Youngkin’s MAGA BOV appointees at VMI, you may remember, voted in February against extending the contract of the school’s first Black superintendent, Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, and the UVA board complied in advance with Trump administration directives killing that school’s DEI programs and directing doctors at UVA Health to refer trans teens patients in the process of receiving gender-affirming care through the health system’s Transgender Youth Health program “as soon as practicable to alternative private providers.”
Similar actions have been approved by the boards at Virginia Tech, VCU, JMU, George Mason and the Virginia Community College System.
ICYMI
- UVA Board of Visitors does Youngkin’s bidding: ‘DEI is done at the University of Virginia’
- VMI Board votes against extending contract of school’s first Black superintendent
- JMU’s MAGA Board of Visitors votes to dismantle school’s DEI office
- George Mason latest school to consider ending DEI programs at Trump’s behest
- Virginia Tech board ignores opposition, bends the knee on future of DEI programs
- Virginia Community College System, at behest of Trump, Miyares, kills DEI initiatives
The day late and a dollar short response from Senate Democrats isn’t going to undo the damage there, unfortunately.
“The work and the oversight that we have and as chairman of this committee is to provide accountability and oversight to our prestigious institutions to ensure that those bodies align with our values and what we see in the political climate today, especially coming out of Washington, trying to make their way into our commonwealth. It is our job to stand up and protect those values, and that is what we are doing today,” said Senate Privileges and Elections Committee Chair Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, after the committee vote on Tuesday.
Rouse, it’s worth noting here, is a candidate in the crowded Democratic Party lieutenant governor primary, with the polls open and votes being counted next Tuesday, June 17.
Maybe now we get why the committee got together out of session to cast a vote that probably won’t amount to a hill of beans at the end of the day.
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Chris Graham
