Guest editorial: Bye, Bye, Bye Diamond Jim

by: Lee Cronin

Jim Ryan’s Resignation Is Too Little, Too Late for the University of Virginia

At long last, Jim Ryan has tendered his resignation as president of the University of Virginia—a decision that should have been made years ago. 

This is not a time for solemn farewell speeches nor glowing tributes. 

This is a moment for reckoning. 

Jim Ryan’s tenure has been marred by obfuscation, selective accountability, and a consistent pattern of institutional failure that has left the very fabric of Mr. Jefferson’s University threadbare.

For starters there remains a cloud of question over the horrific and still-murky deaths of the three UVA football players—Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler, and D’Sean Perry. 

For all the crocodile tears and candlelight vigils, where was the truth? 

To this day, the University has never offered full transparency about the circumstances that led to the tragedy, nor has it addressed the deeply troubling accounts of a culture of hazing and neglect that circumstantially contributed to the incident.
Instead, we got deflection, spin, and the same bland reassurances that the “community was healing.”

Healing?

How do you heal from wounds no one will admit are open?

The administration under Ryan treated these young men’s lives like a PR liability instead of a call to action.

Then there’s the slow-burning corruption inside the UVA Medical Center—a scandal so thick with internal rot it eventually forced the resignation of its director. 

Yet, through it all, Jim Ryan remained conspicuously above the fray, traipsing through the moment like it was a scene from Forrest Gump, hands supposedly clean, eyes supposedly closed. 

Either he knew and did nothing, or he refused to know what was happening under his own watch. 

Incompetence or complicity—take your pick. 

Neither is acceptable from the leader of one of the nation’s most storied academic institutions.

Last but not least, let us not forget the long and embarrassing anti-Semitism debacle that played out on Grounds, when Jewish students like Matan Goldstein were harassed and alienated, the administration responded with limp press releases and vacuous “dialogue circles.”

Only after legal action was filed did the University begrudgingly settle out of court—a cowardly dodge that, once again, protected the institution’s image over the rights and safety of its students.

Chalk up another failure for Ryan’s tone-deaf and spineless leadership.

Jim Ryan’s resignation follows another feckless era under former president Teresa Sullivan. 

It is now absolutely critical—no, existential—for the Board of Visitors to finally get this right.

No more figureheads. 

No more legalistic careerists hiding behind DEI slogans and crisis managers. 

Mr. Jefferson’s University needs a real educator—someone with both backbone and integrity, someone who understands that leadership means accountability to all students, not just the loudest voices in the room.

This is not just about administrative failures. 

This is about a pattern of cultural decay at UVA under so-called leadership that has either lacked the moral courage or the managerial capacity to guide it. 

Jim Ryan’s departure is the beginning—not the end—of what must be a radical reformation of how this University is governed.

The next president must come not to pander, not to posture, but to rebuild.

Enough with the fiction. It’s time for truth. And it’s long overdue.