The President of the University of Virginia, James Ryan, withdrew on Friday under pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration over school diversity, justice and inclusion policies.

In a letter to the UVA community, Ryan said he had made the “dishonest decision” to step down after completing the resistance of Trump -officials’ demands would put the school’s students and faculties at risk.

“I can’t make a one -sided decision to fight the federal government to save my own job,” he wrote. “To do it would not only be quixotic, but seem selfish and self -centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial support or have their visas detained.”

Virginia’s Democratic US Senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, called Trump administration demand “scandalous” in a joint statement and said Ryan’s departure would hurt the university and the state.

It was not clear if Ryan’s resignation would take effect immediately. Earlier, the New York Times had reported that the Ministry of Justice had demanded his resignation and he decided to capitulate.

The administration has launched a campaign against diversity, justice and inclusion and targeted colleges and universities, as it has claimed, pushes anti-Semitic, anti-American, Marxist and “radical Left” ideologies.

Universities that have been examined or frozen have said that Trump’s attacks are threats to freedom of expression, freedom of academic and the school’s very existence.

In a warning issued to UVA last week, the Ministry of Justice said the government had concluded that the use of race in recordings and other students’ benefits were “widespread practice in all component and facet of the institution”, according to Times.