On June 13, 2017, I published an op-ed in the Charlottesville Daily Progress nominating professor Larry Sabato to be the ninth president of the University of Virginia. Jim Ryan was selected instead.

The seemingly never-ending scandals that have unfolded at UVA in recent years demonstrate the Board of Visitors should have picked Sabato. Indeed, Sabato continues to make the university proud with his insightful political commentary, spectacular teaching, prize-winning research and generous financial gifts.

Frankly, UVA’s new board should fire the university’s new president and replace him with Sabato. I know that sounds mean, but even putting aside that Scott Beardsley’s appointment is probably void because the old board that appointed him didn’t comply with the membership requirements of the controlling Virginia statute, Beardsley is unfit to lead a university whose Honor System has shaped its identity for nearly two centuries.

I mentioned in a Dec. 31 Richmond Times-Dispatch column that Beardsley implemented Ryan’s DEI vision while dean of UVA’s business school; said he planned to ask Ryan for advice on how to lead the university; issued numerous comments in support of the sort of “diversity” that got UVA into trouble with the federal government; and quietly scrubbed his public CV of the list of pro-DEI activities that previously dominated it. Moreover, Beardsley’s business school was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice at the time of the standstill agreement.

If that weren’t disqualifying enough, a Jan.11 article in the Augusta Free Press documents Beardsley’s history of saying whatever he thinks people want to hear so he can advance his career. The authors write, “What we found suggests not a handful of cosmetic edits but a pattern of strategic self-presentation that should have prompted basic follow-up questions in any serious presidential search.” Then, “The résumé is very much the problem — not because it was sanitized, but because it raises fundamental questions about academic integrity that the search process failed to address.”

Those “fundamental questions” include Beardsley having his resume-padding Ph.D. dissertation co-authored by the chair of his dissertation committee, listing publications as “peer-reviewed” when they weren’t, and claiming “over 70″ publications when he had a fraction of that. If Beardsley were a UVA student, the Honor Committee would likely expel him.

There’s more: Beardsley stated in separate remarks to the campus and the Virginia Senate’s Education subcommittee that he agreed to be president of UVA because he “loves” the university. But a Jan. 1 Cavalier Daily article revealed Beardsley had long wanted to be president of any elite university that would have him. For example, in 2012 he applied to be president of Yale and Dartmouth while still ensconced in the corporate world, and with nothing in his background to suggest he was qualified to be president of an Ivy League school.

In a Jan. 18 op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the same authors who uncovered Beardsley’s resume irregularities argued that UVA’s old board had awarded Beardsley a “poison-pill” contract that would cost the university $8.5 million if the new board realizes it was a mistake for the old board to have appointed Beardsley president. I disagree. Not only is Beardsley’s contract probably void because it was signed by the rector of an illegally-constituted board, it is likely invalid because it repeats the same tax law violations that Ryan’s contract committed.

Further, the troubling way Beardsley has repackaged his resume over the years, and the disingenuous statements he has made to the campus and the General Assembly about why he wanted to be president, are arguably grounds for terminating him “for cause.”

None of this would have happened if the board had named Norfolk native Larry Sabato president in 2017. It’s not too late. The new board should appoint Sabato as soon as possible.

Scott Douglas Gerber of Hampton received his doctorate and Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia. His novel “The Trafficker” was published in January.

https://www.dailypress.com/2026/01/31/column-uva-board-should-name-larry-sabato-its-new-president/