This story was reported and written by VPM News.
Virginia lawmakers and University of Virginia faculty are raising alarm bells about ongoing patterns of secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding former UVA President Jim Ryan's resignation in June.
Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville) told VPM News he split a $4,500 public records bill with another legislator after he'd received inadequate responses to his questions about Ryan's resignation and the role played by Board of Visitors members.
Deeds said this was the first time in his 24 years as a lawmaker that he's had to make a Freedom of Information Act request to UVA, let alone pay for one.
"I've worked with boards of visitors that have been appointed by Democrats, that have been appointed by Republicans. We've been able to find common ground most of the time, sometimes not," Deeds said.
"But I've never had to deal with the board of visitors through law firms, and I'm concerned that we had to make this freedom of information request and pay to get the information. It's a public university. This information should be available."
As The Cavalier Daily first reported, the records Deeds received show a text conversation between then-outgoing Rector Robert Hardie and then-incoming Rector Rachel Sheridan about meetings with the US Department of Justice.
Deeds said he was surprised by the price tag for what little was released.
"I don't believe that all of the documents have been released," Deeds said. "I still am determined to try to get to the bottom of what happened."
The New York Times was first to report over the summer that federal officials were pressuring Ryan to resign as university president, allegedly as a condition of resolving various civil rights inquiries. As VPM News later covered, Ryan's resignation went public on June 27, and two weeks later was his last day in the role.
At the time, Ryan wrote, "To make a long story short, I am inclined to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply in this University. But I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job."
Last week, Ryan released a 12-page letter in which he suggested the pressure may have come from certain board members, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and even attorneys for the university.
According to recent reporting from Virginia Mercury, Deeds asked Sen. Mamie Locke (D-Hampton), chair of the Senate Finance Education Subcommittee, to call UVA officials to testify before the General Assembly in early December.
But the statehouse doesn't have the authority to force them to show up.
"Courts have the ability to subpoena witnesses, and they can enforce those subpoenas by jailing people that don't show up," Deeds said. "We, the General Assembly, do not have that ability, so we will probably be able to request certain people to show up. Maybe they will, maybe they won't."
Walt Heinecke, former president of the UVA chapter of the American Association of University Professors, told VPM News he thinks Sheridan, Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson, board member Paul Manning, Interim President Paul Mahoney and Ryan should all be called to testify.
"There needs to be public accountability for what I would characterize as misfeasance in their duties to protect the university from external political interference," Heinecke said.
Heinecke characterized what's been happening at the university as a "MAGA takeover."
Both Heinecke and Jeri Seidman, chair of UVA's Faculty Senate, have said they think Sheridan and Wilkinson should resign. Last Friday, the Faculty Senate passed a resolution calling for those resignations.
"We've been asking for answers since June 27," Seidman told VPM News. Seidman added the Faculty Senate has repeatedly asked for an in-person meeting with Sheridan, but hasn't spoken with Sheridan directly since July. According to Seidman, Sheridan also refused an invitation to attend a scheduled October meeting after UVA and the federal government reached an agreement.
"Answering questions, only in writing, only indirectly, and only when their resignations have been called for is not leadership rooted in transparency and accountability," Seidman said. "Showing up and answering questions and allowing people to ask questions that they might have as they're hearing you, that is what accountable leadership looks like."
'Do something about it'
For months, VPM News has also been attempting to dig into the UVA board's involvement regarding Ryan's ouster.
In late July, VPM News sent a FOIA request seeking copies of communications between BOV members regarding, broadly, investigations involving the US Department of Justice beginning in March.
The university responded with a cost estimate of $34,110.56 for review and redaction of a "voluminous" number of identified records. (UVA's estimate waived the collection fee.) VPM News follow-up questions — an effort to narrow the records request and lower costs — went unanswered for nearly three months.
On Nov. 20, UVA FOIA Officer Faith Hill said the newsroom's broad request netted roughly 77,000 documents. She estimated FOIA office employees would assess 30-50 pages per hour at $22 per hour.
If UVA's FOIA employees review and redact 50 pages per hour (and each of the 77,000 documents is exactly one page), it would take roughly 1,550 hours or 194 business days (most of a year) to fully meet VPM's original request at the quoted cost.
VPM News is still working with UVA's public records office on this records request.
However, VPM News has submitted other, narrower public records requests to UVA in recent months that remain unfulfilled as well.
Akash Sinha, managing editor of Charlottesville Tomorrow, said in an email that the nonprofit newsroom has filed over a dozen FOIA requests with UVA in the past five months. He said several are still awaiting a response after sitting with the public university for two months or more.
Sinha said Charlottesville Tomorrow was quoted over $25,000 for one request pertaining to communications among the members of the university's board about Jim Ryan's resignation.
In conversations with VPM News, Hill and Karen Sowers, a FOIA assistant, attributed the delay to an unprecedented number of inquiries in recent months complicated by a staffing shortage. But even with plans to add a full-time staff member, Sowers said she's not optimistic they'll be able to quickly work through the backlog of public records' requests.
Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said it's hard to accept a public university like UVA complaining about short staffing when the institution likely has the resources to improve the office's situation.
"Do something about it," Rhyne said.
David Cuillier, director of the Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida, also said he thinks UVA can do better.
"It sounds like this is one of those agencies that doesn't have its act together, or worse, is intentionally trying to hide things," Cuillier said. "Either way, if I were a student, faculty member, alumni, donor, lawmaker, I'd be kind of torqued, and I would demand a change. And frankly, change is needed in Virginia."
According to an analysis by Cuillier, Virginia ranks among the worst states when it comes to charging high fees for public records. And because of high fees, he said, only about one-quarter of Virginia Freedom of Information Act requests result in records being released.
"Virginia is one of these states that allows agencies to charge for search and redaction time," Cuillier said, "and that's just a killer for transparency."
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