A group of University of Virginia professors is asking the school’s Board of Visitors to suspend any further actions to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programming until the legality of those programs is settled in federal or state court.
As VPM News has previously reported, there’s nothing currently in federal law that explicitly prohibits DEI offices and initiatives. Regardless, Virginia’s public universities have been swift to do away with these initiatives in the wake of anti-DEI executive orders from President Donald Trump.
The UVA chapter of the American Association of University Professors, an organization primarily dedicated to protecting academic freedom and shared governance in higher education, sent the request to the UVA board in a June 5 letter. Walt Heinecke, an associate professor of research statistics at UVA’s School of Education and Human Development, is on the group’s executive committee…