Fallout continues in wake of the news that University of Virginia President James Ryan will be stepping down from his role as President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice investigates the university’s diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, practices.  Trump issued an executive order earlier this year telling federally funded entities to shut down DEI programs or they would face the termination of those funds. UVA allegedly kept its programs, instead renaming them in an effort to conceal them, which led to an investigation by the Department of Justice.  Reactions to Ryan’s announcement have been mixed.   Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, told The Daily Signal, “This is an important victory in Trump’s crusade to recapture control of our universities. UVA is an important school, and Harvard is an important school, and I believe Trump is going to win with Harvard as well.”  Frederick Hess, senior fellow and Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, posted about the matter on X.   Hess wrote: “As one who was bullied out of the University of Virginia 23 years ago, I find this a very personal dispute. … While I have not been privy to the private exchanges between DOJ and UVA (and may revise my opinion if additional information surfaces), I find it deeply troubling that the DOJ appears to have conditioned access to federal funds on Ryan’s resignation.”  For those asking about my take on the Jim Ryan/UVA situation, here’s my take:As one who was bullied out of the University of Virginia 23 years ago, I find this a very personal dispute. We need to address campus misconduct. I have written at length on that topic and am, in…— Frederick M. Hess (@rickhess99) June 29, 2025 Ryan released a statement on June 27 announcing his decision. Though he wrote that he made the decision “with a very heavy heart,” the president stated that he would not let his personal concerns in the matter endanger hundreds of employees, researchers, and students at the university who, he wrote, would lose their jobs, funding, and visas were he to remain president at UVA.  The resignation has placed Trump’s battle with higher education in the spotlight once more. Though Ryan never mentioned DEI concerns or the investigation by the DOJ explicitly, his resignation letter, arriving in the wake of a DOJ investigation, referred to his decision not to “fight the federal government.”  The Trump administration’s dismantling of DEI at universities began when it pulled billions of dollars from Harvard’s funding. According to a New York Times report on Thursday, the administration had communicated privately with UVA in the last month with similar threats if Ryan refused to resign.   The U.S. Department of Education launched investigations in March of DEI practices at universities that allegedly violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin at any federally funded institution. The department named over 50 institutions, including other elite universities like Yale, Cornell, Duke, Notre Dame, Georgetown, and MIT.   The DOJ issued a letter to Ryan and board Rector Robert Hardie on April 28 demanding a report from the university on its “dissolution and dismantling of DEI” practices. The letter referenced two previous documents, sent April 11 and 18, that had requested the same thing and went unanswered by the school.  For those just catching up or who haven’t been paying attention, here’s the timeline that led to Jim Ryan’s resignation. This is a university president who repeatedly asked the DOJ for deadline extensions, failed to provide a shred of evidence that UVA was complying with federal… pic.twitter.com/yNgGXNcOlg— The Jefferson Council (@TheJeffersonC) June 29, 2025 The Daily Signal reached out to Ryan and UVA’s board of visitors for comment but did not receive one as of publication time.  The post Controversy Over UVA President’s Resignation Puts DEI in Education in the Spotlight  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it had reached an unprecedented settlement with the University of Pennsylvania over transgender-identifying males competing against females in women’s sports.  The federal Department of Education was able to get the university to agree to restore female athletes to all individual UPenn Division I swimming records, titles, or other recognitions that were taken by those males who had competed in the female categories.  Furthermore, the university agreed to issue a public statement to its community explaining that it henceforth will not allow males into Penn Athletics’ female private facilities or allow males to compete in its female athletic programs. “Let me be clear, putting men in women’s intimate spaces is not safe, nor is it reasonable. Putting men up against women in physical competition against women is not fair. America knows it’s not fair. This is a 90-10 issue,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said. The university has also agreed to adopt biology-based definitions of male and female according to Title IX that will be outlined in the statement, and to rescind statements and guidances that do not align with Title IX. The statement will be prominently displayed on its main website and on each of the websites it maintains for women’s athletics.  The university’s moves are in keeping with the guidelines President Donald Trump set out in two orders called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” and “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism.” Finally, the university has agreed to send a personalized apology letter to each of the female swimmers—most notably, Riley Gaines and Paula Scanlan—who suffered because of its now-abandoned policies.  “We said, you owe Paula, Riley, and the other female athletes you wronged a formal written apology on Penn letterhead, and do it in 10 business days,” the federal education chief said. “I stood fully undressed in a locker room full of college age women at the NCAA women’s swimming national championships, and a man from University of Pennsylvania walked in, took off his women’s swimsuit. [He] was fully undressed, fully intact, and fully exposing himself inches away from where me and dozens of other women were also simultaneously fully undressed,” Gaines said, explaining the emotional harm Penn’s policies had caused her and other women.  “But for months before that day, as highlighted by Paula, young women at the University of Pennsylvania were required to endure this man using their locker room 18 times every single week and being told that they had no right to say anything about it, that this man, he wanted to be in the women’s locker room, in the pool because he said he was a woman, they were going to let him, and that was more important than what the women wanted, than their mental health, than their well being, than what they had worked their entire lives for competing at that level,” she added. “Today is a great victory for women and girls, not only at the University of Pennsylvania, but all across our nation. The Department commends UPenn for rectifying its past harms against women and girls, and we will continue to fight relentlessly to restore Title IX’s proper application and enforce it to the fullest extent of the law,” McMahon said in a statement.  “We said, ‘You have to completely rewrite your institutional policy. They signed on the dotted line,” McMahon said. At the announcement, which took place in the ornate Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, prominent advocates of female athletics attributed the change by UPenn to the advocacy of the Trump administration. The education secretary herself said the decision was another example of the Trump effect.  “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, UPenn has agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the University for future generations of female athletes,” McMahon said. This article has been updated since publication. The post UPenn Settlement With Trump Admin Over Trans Athletes Seen as Big Win for Women’s Sports appeared first on The Daily Signal.

After the Senate’s narrow 51-50 passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote, Republican senators celebrated finally getting the massive 10-year fiscal framework across the finish line there. The bill passed the Senate despite the “no” votes from Republican Sens. Ron Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Senate leadership spent plenty of time talking to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who was one of the three Republicans who helped kill another GOP 10-year budget bill back in 2018, but she ultimately fell in line this time. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., explained to reporters that “it’s a collaborative process,” when asked how he was able to get Murkowski on board with the bill.  The budget bill included provisions that provided a tax exemption for fishermen in Western Alaska, allowed some whaling captains to deduct more of their expenses, and put more federal dollars behind Alaskan health care providers. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska (left), and Susan Collins, R-Maine. (Al Drago/Getty Images) But those concessions are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, as the bill provides funding for border security and defense while extending and expanding Trump’s 2017 first-term tax cuts. “With this legislation, we are fulfilling the mandate we were entrusted with last November and setting our country–and the American people–up to be safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” Thune said on the Senate floor shortly after the vote.  Another of the last-minute issues that Republicans resolved to get to final passage was that of deregulation of artificial intelligence. The bill that came to the floor contained a provision that would cut any state that regulated AI off from federal broadband funding. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who has for a long time quarreled with Big Tech, managed to strike the controversial provision with an amendment that passed 99-1. The sole holdout was Tillis, who on Sunday announced he would not be seeking reelection in 2026. The Daily Signal asked Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., how he felt about the removal of the artificial intelligence provision. “99 to one, apparently everybody was OK with it,” Lankford said. “It’s not finished. I mean, that was the biggest issue. It’s a budget bill. When you’re dealing with a reconciliation bill, it’s not a policy bill,” he added.  The Oklahoma senator contended that an issue as significant as artificial intelligence might not be easily addressed in a budget bill. “The real challenge was, if you’re going to really get into the weeds on this, it needs to be a policy piece that we can, in a bipartisan way, work through the details and make sure that we get this right and not try to squeeze it into a budget piece,” he said. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images) He added that Congress must address some of these outstanding issues in future legislation, outside of the budget reconciliation process. The “Kids Online Safety [Act]. We’ve got to get that done,” he said, referencing legislation that Blackburn has proposed to provide a regulatory framework for Big Tech. “I mean, there’s multiple pieces that are out there, that are unfinished business that, quite frankly, our states have done, and many other countries have stepped in to be able to do, and we’ve not been able to get the bipartisan agreement to get it done,” Lankford said.  Will the House of Representatives Kill It? Now, the House Republican leadership is in a mad dash to get the Senate’s version of the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act to Trump’s desk by July 4.  The narrow margin in the Senate, as well as President Donald Trump’s insistence on the Independence Day deadline, will apply a lot of pressure on House Republicans to vote “yes.” But it won’t be easy. Multiple members of the fiscal hawk House Freedom Caucus are currently speaking harshly of the bill, saying it grows deficits and maintains parts of President Joe Biden’s legacy, such as green energy subsidies and an ever-growing welfare state. Freedom Caucus members have so far gone along with party leadership’s efforts, despite their vocal reservations, but this time they sound serious about their complaints. “I’ve not heard one person irrefutably tell me that there are not going to be higher deficits over the next five years as a result of this bill,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said shortly after its passage. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) He later said on the social media platform X that remaining green energy tax credits are “a deal-killer of an already bad deal.” Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, went so far as to say that the “Senate’s version of the OBBB is UNACCEPTABLE.”  Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., shortly thereafter said he would oppose the rule to bring the legislation to the floor if it is left unchanged. “I’m against this, because of what the Senate did. I’ll vote against it here, and I’ll vote against it on the floor until we get it right,” he said in a Rules Committee hearing. Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., is suggesting another option—an amendment to replace the entire Senate bill text with the original House plan. Yes. If the House doesn’t pass the Senate’s version of the OBBB, then it turns into legislative ping-pong. But that's okay. That’s how our founders designed the system. Like I’ve been saying for weeks: let’s STAY IN DC and get it RIGHT for the American People. No recess for…— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) July 1, 2025 Before the bill’s passage in the Senate, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told The Daily Signal that if the Senate’s framework increased deficits beyond the House’s version, they would find a way to stop it without killing the whole budget effort. “I know there are a group of members who will either insist that the only vote they’ll take is to go to conference on it, or that we will just not approve the rule to bring it to debate,” he said. In conference, lawmakers from both houses would sort out the differences. He added, “Both of those options actually keep the bill alive, because obviously, if we voted down the bill, then we’d have to start at ground zero with regards to redoing this reconciliation effort.” Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson is advocating the Senate bill’s passage, while acknowledging that the Senate changed it “little further than many of us would have preferred” in breaking from the House’s plan. “My objective and my responsibility is to get that bill over the line,” he said Tuesday. “So, we will do everything possible to do that.” The post It’s Not Over Till It’s Over: ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Battle Returns to House appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The FBI suppressed intelligence about Chinese meddling in the 2020 election, according to emails released Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.  The FBI declassified and provided requested records to Grassley after the senator received whistleblower information about the matter.  Emails show that on Sept. 25, 2020, the FBI’s field office in Albany, New York, recalled an intelligence report that showed potential Chinese election interference. The report had information from an FBI confidential human source who said the Chinese government was producing “tens of thousands” of fraudulent driver’s licenses to manufacture mail-in votes for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 election.  Appearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Sept. 24, 2020, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said, “We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it is by mail or otherwise.” A three-page cover letter to Grassley from FBI Assistant Director Marshall Yates that accompanied the records release stated, ”One reason cited for not releasing the IIR [intelligence information report] was because ‘the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony.’” “The rationale provided to Albany staff for the recall was that headquarters deemed the report not ‘authoritative,’ but this characterization was met with disagreement by those in the Albany office,” the cover letter continued. “Internal emails reflect that Albany staff had concerns that suppressing the IIR would be ‘dangerous if we cite potential political implications as reasons for not putting out our information,’ emphasizing that it was not the role of analysts to align intelligence with public testimony,” the Yates cover letter added.  In the documents provided to Grassley, the FBI said the allegations were never fully investigated and that that the bureau prevented other intelligence community agencies from accessing or studying the document.  “These records smack of political decision-making and prove the Wray-led FBI to be a deeply broken institution. Ahead of a high-stakes election happening amid an unprecedented global pandemic, the FBI turned its back on its national security mission,” Grassley said in a public statement.  “One way or the other, intelligence must be fully investigated to determine whether it’s true or if it’s just smoke and mirrors,” Grassley continued. “Chris Wray’s FBI wasn’t looking out for the American people—it was looking to save its own image. Now’s the time to rebuild the FBI’s trust. Director [Kash] Patel’s willingness to work with me to establish renewed transparency and accountability is a critical part of that process, and I applaud him for his efforts.”  There was no public contact information for Wray, and The Daily Signal was not able to reach out for comment.  Fox News reported that he couldn’t be reached for comment on this matter. The post Grassley Reveals the FBI Suppressed Evidence of China Meddling in 2020 Election appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I want to talk about our so-called experts. We know they’ve been wrong when they sign these collective letters—51 Intelligence authorities assured us Hunter Biden’s laptop was pretty much made up in Russia. But recently, in some of the marquee newspapers, sites—Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, of course, The New York Times—they made a series of statements by so-called experts that are absolutely confounded by reality. Let’s take Iran. We get all of these stories that the combined Israel and the later United States strikes on the three key sites of uranium enrichment in Iran may not have done very much. We had a leak from the Pentagon, of course, that the media picked up that there was marginal damage. Anybody who looked at the post-operational photographs could see that there was substantial damage. And so, we had David Albright, one of the most prestigious analysts of nuclear proliferation, he said there was serious damage. We had the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi: serious damage. We had Israel: serious damage—Israel intelligence. And our intelligence agencies said serious damage except for this outlying one from the Pentagon that the left-wing media picked up. So, there is serious damage. I don’t know why the Left, especially, tried to suggest there wasn’t. Remember, this is very, very ironic and paradoxical. The Left told us before there was no need to strike Iran because they were months or years away from developing a bomb. There was no real existential danger now. As soon as we did hit, they said, ”Oh my gosh, there might be uranium that could be quickly enriched.” Think of that. They were hyping up the threat after this complete obliteration of many sites than they were before. The same inexactitude is true of the reaction to the Iran war. People on the Right—the MAGA base—said there would be 30,000 people killed, could cause World War III. We were told by the American and European Left that we were going to mix up a cauldron of hatred. We were in Iranian airspace for about 25 minutes. No Americans were killed. Probably very few, if any, Iranians were killed. Immediately, President Donald Trump was able to enact a ceasefire when Iran retaliated and hit our base in Qatar with some ballistic missiles. We had 22-year-old, 23-year-old skeleton crews manning those Patriot batteries. They knocked them down. Trump did not reply. End of story. No World War III. No 30,000 killed. No endless wars. Then we get to the border. And we were told that there’s only one solution for the border, and that was “comprehensive immigration reform.” We heard that for years. In fact, all that we needed was a new president to enforce existing laws. We were told, even Donald Trump—should he come in and get everything he wants—there’s no way you can reduce 10,000 people a day to zero. He did that. He did that. We were told that self-deportation was a myth. That was former Sen. Mitt Romney’s idea in the 2012 election. He kept saying, “We can self-deport a lot of people. They will want to leave.” But he had no plan how to do it. Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol and Justice Department came up with a tripartite system. If you’d self-deport and you go back and you ever want to come back, you can. Legally. You can reapply. But if you’re apprehended in the United States, illegally, you can’t come back at least for 10 years. And we will give you a thousand dollars to go back. And we will pay your air ticket deep into your country. And you know what? Almost a million people have self-deported. And immigration is now exclusively a problem of how to round up the people who came under President Joe Biden’s administration. Not to prevent new people. They’re not coming because of these deterrents. Finally, The Wall Street Journal had told us that the tariffs in March and April, they were going to crash the stock market. They were going to raise prices. We would have a hyperinflation. We were going to have a recession. We were going to lose jobs when coupled with deportation of, you know, a million people leaving and another 300,000 or 400,000 deported. And yet, here we are in June and the stock market is at a record high. The Japanese, the Chinese, their prices for their products, despite the tariffs that they’re paying, are the same, if not lower. Job creation is good. What am I getting at? Donald Trump is pretty commonsensical. If you take a million people away that were working in the shadows at cheaper wages and hurting American job opportunities and you make countries that had asymmetrical tariffs and were responsible for a $1.1 trillion trade deficit and you can stop that and they still want entry into the American market, then you can have an economic renaissance. So just to conclude: On nuclear proliferation—wrong. On a forever war, following the bombing of the uranium enrichment plants in Iran—wrong. Wrong on the border that couldn’t be defended, that you couldn’t stop illegal immigration, you couldn’t self-deport people. Wrong on tariffs. Wrong on the so-called trade war. No recession. No inflation. No sudden loss of jobs. What is the analysis that binds all of us together, whether it’s The Wall Street Journal, as I said, or Bloomberg, or any of these so-called economic gurus who write on those pages? You should try to shed your Trump Derangement Syndrome because it’s really affecting your powers of judgment and analysis. And you’re going to lose readers. You are so wedded to the idea that Donald Trump is going to destroy the United States because of your personal animus, you cannot see that most people have commonsense solutions. Close the border. Tell people to leave, who are here illegally. Tell countries not to put tariffs on our goods unless they want tariffs on theirs. And don’t ever underestimate the U.S. Air Force when it flies into an undefended airspace. In short, most of the criticism of Donald Trump was not based on reality. Is this going to stop that fraudulent reporting? No. It’s going to continue. But we’re going to be astute and awake for their inconsistencies. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Trump-Deranged ‘Experts’ Were Wrong. Again. appeared first on The Daily Signal.