New UVa president backs hiring of ex-Trump aide for campus fellowship

The new president of the University of Virginia said Wednesday that he backs the hiring of a former Trump aide at one of the university’s centers, despite backlash sparked by the decision.

James Ryan told The Washington Post that he thinks hiring former White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short as a senior fellow at the Miller Center “was the right call.” The appointment was made before Ryan officially began as university president.

Ryan said that Short is “someone who has been on the front lines of the presidency, who can help us try to understand it.”

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“I have found, in own academic life in particular, but also in my personal life, that I’ve often learned the most from people with whom I strongly disagree,” he told The Post.

Short’s appointment at the Miller Center has drawn some criticism from members of the university since its announcement last month. The ex-official announced his departure from the White House last month.

A petition against the former Trump official’s appointment has earned more than 3,300 signatures as of Wednesday evening.

Two history professors resigned from the center on Monday over Short’s hiring. The historians, William Hitchcock and Melvyn Leffler, wrote in an op-ed for The Post earlier Wednesday that the center had hired an “enabler of Trump’s anti-truth” in Short.

William Antholis, the director of the Miller Center, defended Short’s hiring in a lengthy statement last week, saying that former aide will help scholars and students “understand and explain this administration, including in its most difficult and divisive moments.”