Gov. Glenn Youngkin made his latest round of university board appointments on June 20, giving him complete control over the bodies that govern Virginia’s institutes of higher education. Democrats are making moves to block Youngkin — who ran on education issues and has focused on removing race and gender-related concepts from K-12 — as they fear he may try to further his legacy of reforming higher education during the last year of his term.
The new appointments come as Senate Democrats wage a legal battle over the confirmation status of eight previous appointees they rejected in a Senate panel on June 9.
Democratic lawmakers are considering blocking more appointees as they say Youngkin is wielding them like proxies and exerting more influence on universities than previous governors.
The boards of visitors are 16-member bodies charged with governing the institutions, from hiring presidents to budgeting and approving course curricula.
Board of Visitors appointees tend to be business leaders, prominent alumni and former elected officials. Notable picks in Youngkin’s recent round include Eric Cantor — the former Republican Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives — to the College of William and Mary board, as well as Sarah Parshall Perry — a former Heritage Foundation fellow and vice president of the conservative group Defending Education — to the George Mason University board.
The governor of Virginia typically nominates four new appointees to each university each year, giving them half of the board by their second year in office and full control by the end of their term.
Youngkin’s board appointees have made a number of consequential decisions in recent years. Virginia universities dismantled their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices in March after Youngkin’s Education Secretary Aimee Guidera asked them to do so to comply with the Trump administration.
At Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University, learning requirements covering topics such as systemic racism, gender studies and workplace inequality were in development for years, until Guidera requested to view the course syllabi in 2024, and both universities cancelled them soon after.
The Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors voted in February to oust now-former Superintendent Cedric Wins, the academy’s first Black leader who was brought in amidst reports of racism and sexism.
Youngkin was also the driving force behind riot police being sent to numerous college campuses over pro-Palestine protests in 2024 — leading to over 100 arrests.
Legal questions surround Democrats’ board rejections
Senate Democrats are suing the leaders of the boards of visitors at GMU, Virginia Military Institute and the University of Virginia to decide whether or not the eight rejected appointees will be allowed to continue serving on the boards, first reported on by the Washington Post.
The appointees rejected in a party line vote during the unusual summer Senate Privileges and Elections Committee meeting were found to be the most partisan by Democrats — most notably former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to the UVa board.
Virginia state code gives legislators 30 days after the start of a general assembly session to vote to confirm or reject the governor’s appointees. Legislators would typically have to wait until January, but concerns over the appointees’ partisanship led Democrats to call a meeting in the middle of summer, operating under a 2024 special session that never adjourned— painting a legal grey area.
Youngkin has called the Senate vote a waste of time, and Democrats’ lawsuit a “meritless” attempt to stop his efforts to remove Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices on the university level, according to the Washington Post.
Attorney General Jason Miyares and Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, have issued opposing letters to the three boards. Miyares wrote that the confirmation vote was not conducted during a typical General Assembly session and is therefore invalid. Surovell has accused the boards of trying to usurp the authority of the Senate — which sparked the lawsuit.
“Apparently the governor and the attorney general can’t seem to read the Constitution,” Surovell said during an interview with Virginia Scope. “Jason Miyares was a state delegate for at least six years and we usually killed between 500 and a thousand bills in committee every year. So if that wasn’t allowed, I don’t know why he didn’t say anything for six years. But apparently now that he’s attorney general, he’s decided to take some very unique views on legislative operations.”
Youngkin’s office referred Virginia Scope to a letter written by Miyares address to universities, in which he calls the statements in Surovell’s letter “false” and “designed to mislead.”
Miyares’ office did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Surovell heard back from the leaders of the university boards he contacted, but declined to share with Virginia Scope what they told him. It is unclear if the boards are following direction from the Senate or Miyares.
Democrats are currently examining Youngkin’s most recent nominees and their actions as they litigate their court case, Surovell said. They are waiting for a judge and hearing date to be assigned and hope to resolve the matter within the next month.
“We can call the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee to have another hearing in two days or two months,” Surovell said.
Feud over university governance marks new territory for Virginia
Democrats have accused Youngkin’s picks of being increasingly polarizing, from Cuccinelli to GMU board member Lindsey Burke. Both are authors of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint made for President Trump to reshape the American government. Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 but has still enacted part of it while in office, including efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, asked Youngkin to remove Burke last year, but to no avail.
Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, said during the June Senate panel that Youngkin’s appointees at GMU have acted with hostility to disrupt or even destroy universities, rather than support them.
Surovell believes many members of the boards are not expressing their own independent judgement, but rather taking direct instructions from the Youngkin and Trump administrations on how to vote on certain policies. He noted the UVa board’s lack of support for President Jim Ryan as a prominent example — who recently resigned under pressure from the Trump administration for not fully complying with scrubbing DEI practices
“Many members of the Senate have received reports of the Youngkin admin trying to influence members on all kinds of different internal governance matters, from really minor, routine stuff all the way up to who ought to be the next rector of their board or president of the university,” Surovell said.
Surovell said Youngkin’s inappropriate exertion of influence on how the schools are run is not consistent with Virginia law or the tradition of independent governance in institutes of higher education, which aren’t supposed to be swayed by partisan influence. It’s not what taxpayers expect for schools built over the course of centuries.
“Governor Youngkin knows better, Surovell said. “He comes from a corporate background and he understands that corporations are run by boards, not by one person.”
Surovell said Youngkin — who has never had a trifecta in the state legislature — may try to make his mark by “ruining” Virginia’s universities by allowing influence from the Trump administration or outside organizations like the Heritage Foundation.
Beyond fighting in court and rejecting Youngkin’s appointees, Democrats may introduce legislation next year to reform Virginia’s system for higher education, Surovell said.
Dr. Bob Holsworth, one of Virginia’s leading political analysts, served on the VCU board for four years after being appointed by former Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell. He believes Virginians are in an unprecedented time for higher education as governors were never so deeply involved in policy and curriculum decisions.
“The governors didn’t wield this kind of hand,” Holsworth said.
Pressure is mounting on all ends as President Trump is forcing universities to fall in line by threatening their federal funding for research, as well as Medicaid and Medicare for schools with health systems, Holsworth explained. Those threats led to Ryan’s ousting.
“Ryan was hemmed in on every side,” Holsworth said. “The governor, the attorney general, the board and then this conservative activist group that was essentially operating hand and glove with the civil rights division of the DOJ.”
VCU and UVa have been casualties to Trump and Youngkin’s crusade on DEI practices as well as gender-affirming healthcare.
“They’ve often taken the parts of the university that are less concerned with the social and cultural agenda and threatened their existence because of their opposition to certain social policies that the university has pursued,” Holsworth said.
Holsworth thinks it is likely many of Youngkin’s recent appointees will be rejected in January, so long as the legislature remains in Democratic control.
Democrats may pull from Youngkin’s playbook by removing his recent appointees so gubernatorial hopeful Abigail Spanberger can immediately replace them and have half of the board members under her control before the fall 2026 semester. Youngkin did the same thing in his first year as governor to former Gov. Ralph Northam’s appointees to the State Board of Education.
“Given the legislature’s distress with what happened at UVA, what happened at VMI, and the concern about how quickly the VCU board caved to Youngkin, there’s a significant chance that we will see this sort of dramatic escalation of the partisanship in higher ed,” Holsworth said.