CHARLOTTESVILLE 鈥 As nearly 8,000 soon-to-be graduates sat on the University of Virginia Lawn Saturday thinking of their futures, they were asked to consider the past.
UVa English professor Michael Suarez delivered an impassioned keynote address Saturday hearkening to the university鈥檚 founding 206 years ago and its place in the future of an American republic on the precipice of its 250th birthday next year.
鈥淯Va was founded on the aspiration that its mission of scholarship and teaching could powerfully support and sustain our American experiment,鈥 said Suarez, who is also director of the UVa Rare Book School and a Jesuit priest. 鈥淔reedom is the great purpose of the liberal education.鈥
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He echoed an oft-quoted excerpt from an 1820 letter from university founder Thomas Jefferson to English historian William Roscoe. Describing his still-under-construction Academical Village in Charlottesville, Jefferson wrote, 鈥淔or here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.鈥
University of Virginia graduates carry balloons at Final Exercises on the Lawn at UVa on Saturday, May 17, 2025.
The words were later chiseled over a doorway in the university鈥檚 New Cabell Hall.
鈥淥ur ability to pursue the truth and communicate it freely is a national asset,鈥 said Suarez. 鈥淭he American university must compromise neither its moral provision nor its vision.鈥
Suarez鈥檚 words come at a time when many in American academia feel as though they have been asked to compromise their values.
On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled, 鈥淓nding Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,鈥 directing colleges across the country to eliminate their diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, practices and programs or risk federal funding.
The lion鈥檚 share, including UVa, have said they are complying. But others have not.
Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, saying the White House was attempting to exert 鈥渦nprecedented and improper control over the University,鈥 including its governance, hiring and admissions.
Suarez
In response, the White House has frozen more than $2 billion in federal funding earmarked for Harvard.
UVa says it is working to comply with the Trump directive, but the U.S. Department of Justice says that work isn鈥檛 being done swiftly enough. The DOJ told the university in a letter last month that it has until the end of May to provide evidence that DEI has been eradicated from Grounds.
Compliance does not guaranteed a univeristy鈥檚 financial security, however. The Trump administration has already pulled more than $60 million in researching funding and terminated nearly 40 grants at UVa.
While UVa is working to comply with the executive order that Harvard is fighting, the leaders of both universities have signed a statement circulated by the American Association of Colleges and Universities calling the federal government鈥檚 actions an 鈥渦nprecedented government overreach鈥 and 鈥減olitical interference.鈥
鈥淲e are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight,鈥 the statement reads. 鈥淗owever, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.鈥
University of Virginia President Jim Ryan addresses graduates at Final Exercises on the Lawn at UVa on Saturday, May 17, 2025.
Suarez highlighted the pressure university administrators are under today, while also poking a little fun at UVa President Jim Ryan.
Ryan, he said, must not have been paying attention when former MLB Commissioner and Yale University President Bart Giamatti said that 鈥渂eing a college president is no way for an adult to make a living.鈥
Yale, which Suarez referred to as 鈥渁 school in Connecticut,鈥 was Ryan鈥檚 alma mater and he attended while Giamatti was president.
Ryan, who has served as UVa president since 2018, has come under fire in recent years, not only for his handling of Trump鈥檚 DEI directive but also an on-Grounds shooting in 2022, which left three students dead; a series of pro-Palestine protests in May of 2024, which ended in state troopers arresting student demonstrators; an uptick in reported antisemitic attacks at the university, which has prompted a lawsuit and criminal investigation; and allegations of criminal and unethical behavior within the university health system, which led to the resignation of UVa Health CEO Dr. Craig Kent in March.
University of Virginia graduates walk past the Rotunda at Final Exercises at UVa on Saturday, May 17, 2025.
On Thursday, the Jefferson Council, a conservative alumni group with close ties to university and state officials, launched a website, , calling on UVa’s governing Board of Visitors to replace Ryan as president.
鈥淭he damage to UVA鈥檚 values and traditions is not theoretical 鈥 it is palpable and measurable, and is the result of leadership that has failed the entire University community,鈥 Jefferson Council President Joel Gardner said in a statement announcing the launch of the campaign.
Suarez鈥檚 message to students Saturday was one of community, not contention.
He urged students to remember all those who helped them along their way to Final Exercises: 鈥渢he high school teacher who made a subject come alive for the first time; the mentor who believed in you; the mom or dad who sacrificed more than you might even know.鈥
鈥淧lease never fail to remember how you came to this day,鈥 he exhorted. 鈥淣o one walks the Lawn alone.鈥
Keeping the atmosphere light, Suarez added, 鈥淚 think it was Voltaire who said that no student was ever sufficiently grateful to his teachers. If you happened to be in my class, now is the time for you to know that I wear a 16/34 shirt and I drink single malt whiskey.鈥
University of Virginia graduate Jonah Strupinsky embraces Kim Kelley at Final Exercises on the Lawn at UVa on Saturday, May 17, 2025.
