Governor Glenn Youngkin has issued an executive order establishing the nation’s first AI-powered review of state regulations.
The order will build on previous work of the Office of Regulatory Management (ORM) conducted by humans, which Youngkin claims streamlined 26.8% of state regulatory requirements, eliminated 47.9% of the words in guidance documents, and saved Virginians $1.2 billion a year.
“Given our tremendous success in streamlining the regulatory code thus far,” wrote Youngkin in his executive order, “it is paramount to maintain momentum and continue search for reductions. AI presents an opportunity to supercharge these efforts to further reduce excessively burdensome regulatory requirements in the Commonwealth.”
In a recent post on Bacon’s Rebellion, I cited what I felt was the disproportionate treatment of some undocumented immigrants by the criminal justice system. There was a lot of push back.
Most of the negative commentary centered around the fact that the immigrants were in the United States in violation of federal law. As one person commented, “Either we enforce the law or we don’t.” One commenter went so far to accuse me of inconsistency, if not hypocrisy, by saying, in reference to me, “The only laws that matter are the ones he likes.”
That last comment hit home and resulted in my doing some reflection. The clear gist of these comments are that laws are laws and all should be enforced, whether we like them or not. But, as a society, do we really believe that? Do we really want all laws to be enforced, or just the ones we like?
Mark Edmundson, an English professor at the University of Virginia, ran a column Saturday in the Wall Street Journal about threats to academic freedom.
He leads with an anecdote about teaching John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost” with his students. “Milton can help you think about almost any consequential human subject. How shall we govern ourselves? … I am never tired of Milton and neither, it seems, are my students. And I sometimes give quiet thanks for the freedom to teach ‘Paradise Lost’ as I like.”
“One of the best freedoms in the world,” he writes, “is the freedom to sit in a quiet room and try to get at the wisdom in great writing with a group of students,” he writes.
But now, as the WSJ sub-head puts it, “ideological demands from the right” are putting the teaching of literature “in danger.”
In danger? Really?
The irony is that Edmundson’s column describes a very real threat to academic freedom — from the left, although he minimizes it. He offers no tangible evidence whatsoever of a peril from the right. When I say no evidence whatsoever, I mean no evidence whatsoever.
The propensity of American news outlets to spread outright falsehoods about extreme weather and the claimed (but easily refuted) link to “climate change” has been on full display this week.
Any observant person who spends even a day driving in the Texas Hill Country can see it is one giant flood plain. If you understand geology at all, you can see indications along the streams that point to past high-water marks over not just centuries, but eons. If you can read, you’ll notice all the highway signs warning of high water on bridges, most of which also have a flood gauge attached.
The flood that struck the Guadalupe basin last week was predicted by the National Weather Service in plenty of time for action, but local officials didn’t take it seriously. Kerr County lacked an aggressive warning system and suffered the worst casualties, while other counties with sirens fired them off and saved more people. Kerr had considered a similar warning system and rejected it. Shame.
But the average media consumer this week could be left with a strong impression that no such flood had ever happened before. The records kept since people started doing so prove otherwise and even that flood had several precursors as bad or worse. The Texas summer climate that produced such floods a century ago is indistinguishable from the climate in 2025.
We had a very similar rain and flood event in downtown Richmond in 2004, and 56 years ago I personally rode through the remnants of Hurricane Camille that devasted Nelson County. A possible 1-degree Fahrenheit change in average temperature in the half century since then is meaningless. But the media soldiers on with its mission to spread fear and nonsense.
The University of Virginia Faculty Senate today passed a resolution expressing “no confidence” in the Board of Visitors for failing to “protect the university and its president from outside interference” and for “not consulting with the faculty Senate in a time of crisis.”
The faculty called for a full accounting of the “series of events and actions taken by the board that resulted in the resignation of President Jim Ryan,” and demanded that the search committee to find a replacement be comprised of “at least 75% of UVA employees.”
According to the statement, “the university’s board of visitors states that visitors actively safeguard principles of academic freedom for the university and its faculty and endeavor to protect the university from outside influences seeking improperly to shape it.”
However, the “tone and content” of seven letters from the Department of Justice regarding the dismantling of racial preferences and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion addressed to university leaders “can reasonably be understood to constitute outside influences seeking improperly to shape the governance of the university.” (Find the full text at the bottom of this post.)
The statement reads like an incoherent cry of angst.
The statement provided no citation for its contention that responsibilities of the Board of Visitors include safeguarding “academic freedom” and protecting the university from “outside influences.” The phrase “academic freedom” does not appear anywhere in the Board of Visitors Manual.
Two days ago, I made the case that the University of Virginia has a shot at becoming the most desirable university in the country to learn, teach and pursue knowledge. To do that, the Board of Visitors must recruit a president and a provost committed to building a faculty nationally renowned for its intellectual diversity. Only if there is pluralism in the professoriate can there arise a free-wheeling academic culture where ideas collide, mutate, propagate, die and synthesize into exciting new forms.
There are many obstacles to achieving such an outcome, both internal and external. The tenure system, though useful for protecting academic freedom, favors seniority and slows turnover. Moreover, many departments have been captured by ideologues, so even when positions open up, hiring committees have no interest in hiring colleagues whose ideas they find unsympathetic. In the political realm, Democratic legislators are mobilizing in defense of academic “freedom” and “autonomy,” by which they mean working to ensure the dominance of those who think like them on fractious culture-war issues.
Perhaps the biggest barrier to change is that conservatives themselves have given so little thought to what “intellectual diversity” means. No one — not Governor Glenn Youngkin, nor the Board of Visitors, nor even conservative intellectuals anywhere, as far as I know — has clearly defined the concept.
They’ll recognize it, apparently, when they see it.
What is the desired ratio in an intellectually diverse faculty between Marxists, leftists, liberals, moderates, conservatives, classical libertarians and free thinkers who can’t be confined to any ideological box? Should we vie for partisan parity, or is it sufficient to break the left’s lock on campus culture? Should there be a 50/50 balance of left and right? Should faculty viewpoints look like — or more to the point, think like — America? Or, as a state institution, think like Virginia?
Then, once we have defined intellectual diversity, how do we attain it?
In a statement to the University of Virginia faculty senate, Acting President J.J. Davis confirmed yesterday that the university had obtained outside counsel to assist in negotiations with the Department of Justice regarding “many areas of the inquiry” relating to the dismantling of racial preferences and DEI.
“Through counsel, UVA is working collaboratively with the U.S. Department of Justice on a voluntary resolution agreement,” Davis said. “Coordination between counsel for UVA and DOJ is ongoing. UVA officials cannot discuss any related issues to DOJ at this time while they are in the midst of the negotiations. However, when a final resolution agreement is reached, the final resolution agreement will be public.”
After reading the prepared statement, Davis added, “There has been engagement of UVA with external counsel since April of this year with various leaders … including current and former board members.” Those board leaders likely included Robert Hardie, who was rector until June 30, and his successor Rachel Sheridan.
The statement does little to confirm or contradict the emerging Democratic narrative that the Department of Justice was overreaching its authority by pressing for the removal of President Jim Ryan. That might prove to be the case, but there is insufficient evidence at this point to draw a hard conclusion. Partisans would be well advised to wait for more information before committing themselves to theories that might be revealed to be untenable. In other words, everyone, take a chill pill.
“With just 4 employees” in his regulatory office, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has “saved residents $1.2 billion per year” and “reduced cost of building a new house by $24,000,” by eliminating more than a quarter of Virginia’s regulations, says Dominic Pino of the National Review. Under Youngkin, “occupational license approval times declined from 33 days to 5 days. Stormwater permitting reforms saved $124 million.” And “Department of Environmental Quality permit processing times declined by 70%.”
Like similarly successful efforts in Iowa and Idaho, Virginia’s reforms have been boring, methodical, and based on economic analysis rather than political noteworthiness.
Since 2022, Virginia has reduced the number of requirements in its regulatory code by 26.8 percent, exceeding Youngkin’s goal of 25 percent. He says his administration is on pace to reach a 33 percent reduction by the end of his term early next year. The reduction in regulatory word count is even greater: 11.5 million words were struck, nearly half of the total found in state guidance documents…Deregulation in housing construction is estimated to reduce the cost of building a new house by $24,000 on average….
The Richmond Times-Dispatch recently reported on three men caught up in Virginia’s criminal justice system.
The first is Jordan Shelton, a 28-year-old Richmond man. He was on trial in Greene County on a charge of involuntary manslaughter, for which he could have gotten a sentence of ten years. Two years ago, Shelton was driving a truck on a winding road in Ruckersville. As he rounded a curve, he struck a car being driven by 89-year-old Melvin Bond. Bond was killed. A Virginia State Trooper reported that Shelton said that he often drove over the centerline “on roads like that.”
This was not an isolated incident for Shelton. Two months after that fatal crash, he was arrested in Henrico for driving 96 mph in 65 mph zone. He was found guilty of reckless driving and served two days of a three-month jail sentence. Over the last six years, he has accumulated six driving convictions.
The Greene County Commonwealth’s attorney allowed Shelton to enter a plea of guilty to a reckless driving charge, rather than involuntary manslaughter, on the condition that the involuntary manslaughter charge would be dismissed if he maintains a clear driving record for a year. The judge made it clear that Shelton was fortunate when he told him, “The court would find you guilty with sufficient evidence of involuntary manslaughter if you had your trial today.”
For time immemorial, higher-ed policy in Virginia was the subject of broad bipartisan agreement. No longer. Virginia Democrats are fired up about University of Virginia President Jim Ryan’s resignation, and they are using it to make Virginia statewide elections a referendum on President Trump.
We’ve already reported on how Senate Democrats have threatened, in the name of depoliticizing appointments to the governing boards of public state universities, to take the unprecedented act of rejecting every single nominee advanced by Governor Glenn Youngkin. Now Democrats are ginning up a narrative of an assault on academic freedom and vowing to “fight back hard.”
Senator Adam Ebbin
Other than from John Reid, candidate for lieutenant governor and former talk-radio host who remains as feisty as ever, I have seen little pushback from Republicans.
Read the following statement by Senator Adam P. Ebbin, D-Alexandria, which I quote in full because it reveals the new Democratic Party narrative in the making.
Virginians are fed up with the Left’s open borders policies—a good sign for Republican incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares.
Jay Jones. Image created by Restoration News
by Hayden Ludwig
A new poll by Restoration of America shows 61% of Virginians back President Trump’s deportation policies, while 68% support Attorney General Jason Miyares’ plan to abolish sanctuary counties across the commonwealth.
Illegal immigration is emerging as a major issue in the critical November race, when Virginians will elect a new governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. Incumbent Miyares, who is running for a second term, has come out strongly in favor of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in contrast to Democrat Jay Jones, who refuses to say whether he supports ICE enforcing immigration law in Virginia while blasting Miyares’ “partisan political agenda.”
Democrats killed Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) effort to ban sanctuary cities during budget negotiations in February, which would’ve required counties and cities cooperate with ICE detainers. In response, Youngkin — assisted by Miyares — ordered state law enforcement to work with ICE under the 287(g) program, which allows local authorities to apprehend illegal aliens until they’re transferred into federal custody. Restoration News has covered the 287(g) program and the radical Left’s resistance to it here.
George Kennan, one of the titans of 20th century American diplomacy, appeared in April, 1951 at the University of Chicago to present a series of lectures. He was there to explain, more or less, the first half of the 20th century.
“In the fabric of human events,” Kennan said, “one thing leads to another.”
Last week, in the after aftermath of Jim Ryan’s resignation as president of the University of Virginia, The Cavalier Daily reported the comments of 2024 alumna Taylor Vest, who said that Ryan’s resignation was not only an attack on the University, but on academic freedom and institutional independence. She fingered the Board of Visitors as one culprit.
“Rather than defend our University’s leadership and autonomy, they have stood by while a respected president is pushed out for staying true to his convictions which benefit the greater university community,” Vest said. “This is not how decisions should be made at U.Va. This is not how leaders are treated in a healthy democracy. This is not the Virginia way.”
She’s right. This is not the Virginia Way.
President Donald Trump has no slot in the chain of command. An institutional process determines and controls the leadership of Virginia’s schools. Wedging the president in there, via his righteous Justice Department, is neither constructive nor sensible.
But, as Kennan said (hard to argue with it), one thing does tend to lead to another and it often seems as if humanity suffers for lack of imagination. Where might matters take us next?
Just two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled race-conscious admissions policies in higher education violated the U.S. Constitution. While the ruling itself was limited to college admissions, its reasoning has rapidly become a basis for legal and political challenges to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in other settings.
In effect, the Supreme Court affirmed the Equal Protection Clause as a “foundational principle,” excluded race-based decision-making and that, for the time being, is that.
This has implications, not just for the University of Virginia, but for every state-owned college and university in the commonwealth. That fact may now be sinking in.
The potential now exists to make UVA the most exciting university in the country to learn, teach and pursue knowledge.
Image credit: Bing Image Creator
by James A. Bacon
The departure of President Jim Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom suddenly leaves reformers in the driver’s seat at the University of Virginia. Now what? We know what we didn’t like — we didn’t like the reign of social-justice orthodoxy that stifled intellectual diversity and free expression, and we didn’t like the bureaucratic DEI apparatus that enforced the rules with dual standards. But what do we want? What is our vision going forward? Shared expectations of the future are essential as the Board of Visitors searches for a new president and provost.
Perhaps the newly constituted Board under the direction of newly appointed Rector Rachel Sheridan will have that discussion. Previous Boards did not. Most critical meetings were held in closed session. Open meetings were carefully scripted and allowed negligible opportunity for blue-sky thinking. With this column and several to follow, I hope to spark that conversation.
For all of its deficiencies, UVA has a remarkable opportunity — a chance to position itself as the most exciting university in the United States, and thus the world, to study and teach.
That seems an audacious ambition. But consider: We start our journey, if we give credence to the U.S. News & World-Report best universities ranking, as the 24th top university in the country. Our academic programs are held in fairly high esteem. We have rich history and traditions. The Rotunda and Lawn are an unparalleled architectural treasure. We have a $14 billion endowment. We have a AAA bond rating. Those are not bad attributes to start with.
The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….
This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.
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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.
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