TWIBS: University of Virginia Rolls Over, Shows Soft Underbelly to Trump
The latest in a string of compromised institutions, University of Virginia is has agreed to the demands of the terrorists occupying the White House.
Humor by Aly Gibbs
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s longest running column! Every Friday, Aly Gibbs digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
The University of Virginia has fallen, I repeat, the University of Virginia has fallen!
In a general sense I couldn’t possibly care less about what’s going on at UVA, because the concept of Virginia alone gives me hives, but I am concerned about the deal the Trump administration just brokered with this very old, very prestigious public research university. You see, Trump and his buddies have been waging war against American universities more or less since the absolute nanosecond they took office, and seeing another institution fold under the weight of intimidation tactics is deeply troubling.
If you weren’t aware, Trump and some of his cronies like President Stephen Miller (the nation’s leading dead-eyed nighttime park strangler) and JD Vance (the nation’s leading couch molester) have spoken at length about a need to dismantle the liberal hold on American collegiate institutes. They’ve gone so far as to suggest that sending conservative kids to university is akin to “sending them to the enemy,” probably because better educated people typically adopt ideologies left of center.
So far, the president and his scheming viziers have taken away federal funding from research universities and, in the case of UVA, undertaken scare tactic “investigations,” Salem style witch hunts that mostly consist of blatant harassment. In the tradition of conservatives lying about their intentions, they say that they’re investigating racial discrimination, DEI, and antisemitism. What they mean is that they’re investigating “racism” against white people, the existence of transgender people on campus, and protests against Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.
Now, UVA has given in to President Stephen Miller’s demands. Per reporting by Politico, “The university agreed to abide by a DOJ memo outlining guidance for recipients of federal funding and ensure the institution will not discriminate based on race in its university programs, admissions and hiring. The school will also send information and data to the department on a quarterly basis through 2028, and the president of the institution will personally certify its compliance.”
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in a statement, “This notable agreement with the University of Virginia will protect students and faculty from unlawful discrimination, ensuring that equal opportunity and fairness are restored. We appreciate the progress that the university has made in combating antisemitism and racial bias, and other American universities should be on alert that the Justice Department will ensure that our federal civil rights laws are enforced for every American, without exception.”
It’s important to note here that Dhillon lost 70% of her Justice Department staff back in May because the civil rights lawyers employed by the government at the time refused to act as a collective sycophantic cudgel for Trump to harass his political enemies through. If nearly three quarters of a department resigned upon my appointment, I think I would have to take a look in the mirror and ask myself if I’m a huge repugnant amoral asshole. Unfortunately, I doubt Dhillon experiences such compunctions.
What seems to be the biggest goal of this enterprise—ensuring that transgender people can’t use the correct bathrooms or play on the right sports teams at college campuses across America—is, regrettably, a huge success. Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania have both adopted discriminatory anti-trans policies at the behest of their overlords in the White House, and even Harvard quietly removed explicit protections for trans athletes from their athletics department guidelines back in September.
Lest you despair too deeply, know that there is a growing coalition of universities that would rather buck the Trump administration than give into their demands, and this fight is far from over. If you happen to be a college student and you’re worried that your university might give into the radical demands of deranged Republicans, I recommend connecting with student organizations that are involved in protesting against that kind of cowardice.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
