The Trump administration has privately demanded that the University of Virginia oust its president to help resolve a Justice Department investigation into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The extraordinary condition the Justice Department has put on the school demonstrates that President Donald Trump’s bid to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which he views as hostile to conservatives, is more far-reaching than previously understood.

The Justice Department has contended to the university that the president, James E. Ryan, has not dismantled the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs and misrepresented the steps taken to end them. A spokesperson for the department did not return a request for comment.

The demand to remove Ryan was made over the past month on several occasions by Gregory Brown, the No. 2 official in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to university officials and representatives, according to the three people briefed on the matter.

Brown, a University of Virginia graduate who, as a private lawyer, sued the school, is taking a major role in the investigation. He told a university representative as recently as this past week that Ryan needed to go in order for the process of resolving the investigation to begin, two of the people said.

Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s top civil rights lawyer, has also been involved in negotiations with the university. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia, where she was a student in the law school at the same time as Ryan.sOK?

The people briefed on the back-and-forth between the university and the Justice Department spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Ryan, hired in 2018 as the university’s ninth president, has leaned into issues like making the school more diverse, increasing the number of first-generation students and encouraging students to do community service. But his approach, which he says will make the university “both great and good,” has rankled conservative alumni and Republican board members who accuse him of wanting to impose his values on students and claim he is “too woke.”

Before becoming the University of Virginia’s president, Ryan served as the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he was praised for his commitment to DEI programs. Harvard has been one of the Trump administration’s chief targets since it began its assault on higher education.

A spokesperson for the University of Virginia did not respond to a message seeking comment on Ryan’s status.