The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Bert Ellis, Former UVA Board Of Visitors Member; Why Did VA Governor Glenn Youngkin Fire You?

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Bert Ellis, Former UVA Board Of Visitors Member Why Did VA Governor Glenn Youngkin Fire You? Behind-The-Scenes With Governor Glenn Youngkin Does UVA President Jim Ryan Have Job Security? Is DEI Still Alive At The University of Virginia? UVA Health Investigation – What Did You Learn? Should BOV Clean House W/ UVA Health System? Did UVA Manage 3X Murder Redacted Report Well? Free Speech, Racism & The Honor Code At UVA Bert Ellis, Former UVA Board of Visitors member, joined me live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Wednesday afternoon, guys. I'm Jerry Miller and thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seaville show. It's an absolute pleasure to connect with you guys on a gorgeous and glorious afternoon in downtown Charlottesville. We are less than two miles away from the rotunda, from the John Paul Jones arena, from the lawn, from Scott Stadium, and from the grounds that Thomas Jefferson built, the University of Virginia. Also, less than two miles away from the white spot on the UVA corner, one of the favorite stomping grounds of our guests today, Bert Ellis, one of the owners of the white spot.

He is a double who, he is a man who bleeds orange and blue and he is a gentleman that has certainly been in the news of late. We're gonna spend some time today with Mr. Burt Ellis, by now you know, an influential member at one time of the UVA Board of Visitors, a man that is like me, outspoken, a man that is like me in a lot of ways, alpha, and a man that is committed to what is best for his

community and his university and is unafraid to get to that best version of whatever state that he is in. He is our guest and without further ado, you know, best version of whatever state that he is in. He is our guest, and without further ado, I'd like to, with now 16 states watching the program, 17 states watching the program, Bert Ellis is our guest. And first, I want to thank you, Bert, for joining us on the show, live from Atlanta. We appreciate you joining us on the program. Thank you kindly for joining us.

And if you could take a moment and introduce yourself to the states and the viewers and listeners and the Wahoos that are watching the program right now. Well, good afternoon, Jerry. Thank you for letting me join you and thank you all that are listening in. I am a 50 year alum of the University of Virginia. I have my 50th reunion coming up in another month.

I am a double who, as you said, undergrad at the college and major in economics and then my graduate degree in business from the Darden School. I've served on the Darden board for three terms. I have been for three years on the Board of Visitors which ended about two weeks ago. And I put together a group of 16 other Wahoos that bought the white spot. I worked there 50 years ago and I lived on the lawn and have loved the place ever since and now we have a chance to maintain that legacy. So that's my background. Business-wise, I've been a serial entrepreneur. I've owned

about 40 television stations, was one of the co-founders of WebMD, have started about 20 other companies, some of which I'm still running, and live about a third of the time in Atlanta, about a third in Charlottesville, and about a third in Hilton-Hatton. We appreciate it. We appreciate your time here. We appreciate the insight you're sharing already. Put into perspective what the University of Virginia means to you. what the University of Virginia means to you? It's the best university period. I think it's got the opportunity to be the shining light on the hill for all universities to try to emulate. I think we are at a at a point in time where we can do a lot of things to move this university back towards the middle to

make it absolutely unassailably great. The University of Virginia has been in the crossfire of late birth and it has been challenging to spotlight the adversity UVA has faced on our talk show five days a week. We'll unpack some of that tumultuous activity on the show. UVA Health System will talk about allegations of medical chart changing to maintain performance standards, really devastating allegations of fraudulently billing patients at a time of their most vulnerable when they're sick or on their deathbed.

We'll talk Jim Ryan's job security and what level of security the president of the University of Virginia has. I want to obviously highlight the single sanction honor code that means so much to so many of us and how this single sanction honor code seems to so much to so many of us and how this single sanction honor code seems to be dissolving before our very eyes. We got to discuss the crossroads of free speech and racism and what that crossroads looks like now and what it should look like. Before we get to all those topics, including a redacted triple homicide report that left one mother of a fallen UVA football

player asking questions of what is UVA giving me? This is disingenuous, this report that they've presented to us. Before we get to all those topics, please give us the flip book of what happened with Governor Glenn Youngkin that led to your firing from the UVA Board of Visitors. The short version of that, the governor put me on the board three years ago and asked me to join the board to make changes. He told me that he needed an activist that would take the beach

and hold the beach for reinforcements. Make sure you got a helmet and a cup when you take the beach. And we're going to make changes. I was one of the first four appointees of Governor Youngkin. And so the reinforcements were his subsequent appointees, five the next year and then four this past year or four the next year and then five this past year. So the net result is we now have 13, we, they, Governor Youngkin has 13 of the 17 board members, which is sufficient for a super majority to make any changes or implement anything or implement anything that this group of board members wants to do. In the process of doing that, the governor made a decision that my style was too abrasive, too caustic, that I was pushing for things, some of which we'll talk about.

I made a decision that we're going to get nowhere just asking an organization that was hard left to pretty please move towards the right. We had to push them and prod them and continually ask questions and or make demands. The governor did not like that style. He thought that was ungentlemanly. I disagree with him, but he's the governor and I'm not. He asked me two weeks ago, three weeks ago to resign. He asked me to resign and make up a reason such that I've either had health issues or I had too many calls

on my time or that I had finished the mission, all of which I thought would be either at the best devious or at worst a lie. As we might talk about the honor system, I'm not going to leave this university on a lie. So I said, those are my choices. I choose not to resign. Then the governor used his prerogative to terminate me. He terminated me on the basis of a violation of the Code of Conduct, which I think is bogus, quite frankly.

But again, he's the governor, and I'm not. You know, I'm in agreement with you. I thought it was bogus. You were instructed to get on the Board of visitors and you were instructed to lead change and change you led. And you know, if you're going to make an omelet, you're going to crack some eggs. And Bert Ellis cracked some eggs while he was on the board of visitors. And I've had this commentary on our show in the past, Bert.

I said he knew you were alpha. He knew you were strong-willed. He knew you were committed to the University of Virginia. With your stance with the Jefferson Council, an organization you co-founded, he knew where you stood with DEI. He knew where you stood with single sanction honor code. He knew where you stood with the FUCK sign on the lawn with the students. We all did, right? We knew who you are, right? I mean... The governor said he disagrees with nothing that I did just the way I did it. And what exactly did you did? You were a little outspoken is that what we attribute this to I?

Think you know I can't put my finger on something I talked to the press some I talked to the police officers that weren't policing the corner and You know I had some confrontations at the board level and I had confrontations with some of my fellow board members outside the board level and I had confrontations with some of my fellow board members outside the board. But I don't use profanity. I don't confront people in a public setting. If I have an issue with you, I'm going to take you either into a side room or close the door. I'm not going to embarrass somebody in public. So I don't do that. I'm not going to embarrass somebody in public, you know, so I don't do that. You know, I run a number of companies.

I don't do that with my employees and I won't do that with a friend and I won't do that with an opponent. It's not the way I do it. But I am like you, outspoken and not ashamed of that. Right. And you know what? I think in a lot of ways, and it's taken me 40-some years to get to this point, this is who I am.

I'm not going to change who I am to fit in a vibe or a role or a mindset that other people want. You embody that same quality. And I respect it. It's a quality that folks can, you know, predict what's coming. They understand what's coming. They understand your personality and who you are. So I want to take it a step further.

I think there's more to this story than being outspoken that led to your firing by Governor Glenn Youngkin. I think there's some very influential and wealthy folks working in the background on behalf of President Jim Ryan, perhaps on behalf of diversity, equity and inclusion, and perhaps some other endeavors or movements that you oppose that made a push to get you fired. I have some very concerning questions with the Washington Post reporting, citing anonymous sources. I thought the Washington Post reporting was in a lot of ways a smear campaign against you, never a fan of anonymous sources, especially with the story of this magnitude. I thought the initial smear campaign against you where Democrats tried to get you from

– tried to keep you from being appointed on the board was wrong. Two Democrats broke ranks, they aligned with Republicans. That's how you were appointed to the Board of Visitors by Governor Glenn Youngkin. I applaud those two Democrats who broke rank, who did what was right. Let's talk about the Washington Post reporting. I know this is something that you've given some thought to it, who used these Washington Post writers to leak a story 24, 48 hours before you were fired by Governor Glenn Youngkin? Because whoever leaked that story to the Washington Post, we can start linking to who was behind this movement against you? It was Brian Coy and Jim Ryan. It's very simple in my view.

They dredged up the video of me confronting the police officers on the corner that weren't walking the beat that the university had promised after the series of gun episodes, I guess it was two years ago. I was out there late at night walking the corner, concerned about the corner and the safety. University said they were going to flood the zone with police officers, and the police officers were all in a group of five across the street from the white spot where there was no concern, no action, no bad guys. I just watched them until they came over and they said, what are you doing?

I said, I'm watching you do nothing. That body cam video sat there in the files until three weeks ago. And, you know, and very curiously, the Washington post all of a sudden decided to foyer that, you know, yeah, there were, there were people that were either whispering or yelling in the governor's ear to get rid of me and, and I can speculate on who they might be, but you know, so what? You know, it was still the governor's decision. And I respect the governor as the governor.

He's the chief executive. He gets to appoint and he gets to unappoint. And you know, I'm disappointed and I disagree with him, but I don't disagree that he had the right to do it. You attribute the leak with the Washington Post to President Jim Ryan, we know, seventh president in the history of the University of Virginia who's very much in the crossfire himself and is on very shaky job security right now. I think that's a fact folks. You also highlight one of his lieutenants, Brian Coy, who's the associate vice president for communications and chief communications officer at UVA. I would imagine the reason you think the leak was in part Coy, your words, was because of the clandestine nature of that body cam footage. Someone had to go looking for that UVA, for that police officer body cam footage,

where you're interacting with the police officers in front of your restaurant, the white spot, and without using profanity, you're asking the officers, why are you not patrolling the corner on foot, as opposed to sitting in your patrol cars away from where you need to be? That's what you attribute, that's why you include Coy in the mix here? Yeah, he's the spokesman, he's the hatchet man for Jim Ryan. So, and Jim Ryan has no use for me and I have no use for him. So, he know, he used his power to, in my view, to get a bad story. I didn't think it was bad, quite frankly. I think I did the right thing for

the parents and students, you know, to get more police on the corner. I got more lighting on the corner. I got all the lighting increased in intensity on the corner. You know, my view is that you can't get rid of the bad guys. You can just make them go somewhere else. So if you have police and bright lights, they'll go somewhere else and the kids are safe. The old Rudy Giuliani mythology of fixing the broken glass windows on the storefronts in the street. Perception can lead safety. And I'm with you there. And I agree with you that the Washington Post story was not necessarily bad, but it did

make the governor in some ways look bad. It didn't make you look bad, but it made the governor in some ways look bad. In some ways it could have forced the governor's hand into the next stage and the next stage was the meeting in the office with you and the governor, a meeting that he called. Walk me through what happened there. The governor calling a meeting with you, give us the behind the scenes and the dynamic of that meeting. We had a very, very pleasant one hour meeting, maybe 50 minutes. We talked about the university, the direction of the university, the things that we're concerned about the university and we had a violent agreement, if you will, on what we think and things that have to change and

are changing. The governor made a point of pointing out to me that he has his Jefferson council hat on his agenda. And very proud of the Jefferson council and what we stand for and where we're going. But he said, but I think your know, I think your style is, is not consistent with my style. He talking about his style. And I said, it may not be, but you know, that's not what you, if you will, hired me to be,

you know, and I'm, you know, I, you know, I, I came to your attention through one of me to be. I came to your attention through one of your former, I guess, advisors, Jeff Rowe, who had read my viral letters that I wrote after the FKUVA sign and in the process of forming the Jefferson council. And those were things that apparently appealed to the governor then. And again, he agrees with what I stand for and what I was doing. I was too, a word he used several times was caustic. And I argued that we'll get nowhere asking the other side to pretty please modify your behavior. Well, in particular since...

He used an analogy that he asked me to take the beach and wait for reinforcements, but he says you have taken the beach and we no longer need the Marines on the beach and wait for reinforcements, but he says, you have taken the beach, and we no longer need the Marines on the beach, it's time for the Army. To stick with that analogy, I said, Governor, we own a very, very small sliver of the beach, a very small sliver. It is time to go take the whole island. And you still need the Marines for that. And you still need some lieutenant that's going to pop his head up out of the foxhole and say, let's go. I was trying to be that lieutenant for you.

Yeah. You were trying to be the agent of change. You were trying to be the agent of change on behalf of Governor Glenn Yonkin. And that's what he asked you to do when he appointed you to the Board of Visitors. I find this entire saga curious. And it's almost a soap opera. And if anything, Bert, I think it makes the governor look bad. I don't think it makes you look bad. I think it makes you look like, you know, just, and I've offered this commentary, I think it makes it kind of look like the governor used you in some ways, because once diversity equity inclusion got put into the limelight, and then once diversity equity inclusion got that 30-day shot clock,

which you guys put Jim Ryan on the 30-day shot clock, and you say you need to come back to the BOV and report how you're eviscerating or you're eradicating DEI from University of Virginia and he's on the clock right now, then Glenn Yonkin starts going on all the national news networks, talking with all the talking heads and waving the proverbial flag saying look what I did, I got DEI out at the University of Virginia. Then shortly after he makes this national media tour, this happens with you. And from my standpoint, and I want you to, if you could, if you could please, sir, convince me otherwise, did he use you here?

Do you feel used by the governor with this DEI? And if you were the agent of change and once change was done, and we'll get to the level of change, because I think we're both in in agreement DEI is still front and center at the University of Virginia but do you feel used at all by the governor? In a very positive way I mean I offered to be used I mean agent of change. So I helped. I pushed and I helped. I probably exacerbated my issue with the governor when he went on Laura Ingraham and said DEI

is dead at UVA. Laura asked him, are you sure it's dead? He said it's dead at UVA. And that very next week, I was up in Charlottesville and doing my rounds and all, and online and physically. And the DEI master website at UVA was still up. All the people were still up. They were still teaching new DEI courses the next day. And, you know, I sent some emails to Jim Ryan and his team, you

know, what gives? We passed a unanimous resolution to terminate DEI, not think about it, to terminate it. We want this thing ripped out at the roots. I was outspoken again, but that's what we did. It was a unanimous vote, which was a very, very tough thing to get. One of the things I did on the board on behalf of the Yonkinites, as I call us, was to be the whip, to get the votes. To get anything done at the board, you are penalized by a combination of FOIA rules and public meeting rules and then the fact that the board is still run by the last four holdouts, you know, Northam appointees, which are not us.

And they want to stay, they want to keep the university hard, hard, hard left. And they control the agendas, you know, for the board meetings or special meetings, unless you do special meetings and put your own agenda. So to get something else done where you can't talk as a group except at a board meeting and then the board meeting's agenda is preset by people that don't want to talk about what the Yonkinites want to talk about, you have to organize that one phone call at a time to do that. I took the time to help my colleagues do that. Some of the colleagues that I talked to, to get them to come around, I had some forceful

conversations. Some of them didn't like that. That's okay. I'm not everybody's cup of tea. That's no doubt about it. I know what it's like. I know exactly what it's like. I'm the same way. And I have no problem with it, and I think you have no problem with it either. And frankly, that's what's made, you know, helped us be successful in a lot of ways. If you're going to be an entrepreneur and a serial entrepreneur at that, you need to, you know, shake some trees and you need to rattle some feathers. And that's just the nature of the game. You mentioned the Northroom Holdovers. He's talking about the governor for folks that obviously are living under a rock here. The governor before Yonkin has got one in particular who's the rector and Robert Hardy who is

in a lot of ways probably the most influential member of the board. He's the rector, he's helping set the agenda, he obviously has the ear of Jim Ryan, he made an extremely sizable donation to UVA athletics with the football facility. This is a very powerful and influential individual who watches and listens to the show. Talk to us about what happened with Robert Hardy and the interaction you had as it pertains to anti-semitism on the University of Virginia. It was, I would call it an argument that happened on the record at a Board of Visitors meeting and it's a board of visitors meeting

and it's a level of dynamic that I don't think we have seen in a very long time at the BOV, certainly not in the digital social media age where a two or three minute video clip can go viral. And before you answer that question, I want to highlight the fact that what you did there was completely right. Because if anti-Semitism is happening at the University of Virginia, the public deserves to know on the record in public capacity how its leaders are going to manage anti-Semitism with 18,

19, 20, 21, and 22-year-old students, children, our kids. If my kids were going through that, I would want to know what the Robert Hardys and the Bert Ellises and the Jim Rines of the world were doing to keep our kids safe. So give us the flip book of the Robert Hardy argument that happened on the record and and everything else that the public may or may not know. Well the board meetings are

completely orchestrated by the rector. You know the Board of Visitors over the past 10 years has switched from being a governing organization to a facilitating organization that basically serves at the president's whim and does his calling. And Robert is of that school. So a board meeting is set up, the whole agenda, and we the board, I got a 500 a board meeting is set up, you know, the whole agenda and we the board, I got a 500 page board book about five days before the meeting starts. And then the course of those two days of board meetings, which is really about 12 hours of

meetings, every one of those 500 pages is presented on a screen and the 17 of us plus a room full of other people have to listen to and go through 500 pages of PowerPoint. The intent of that is to pat the university on the back, celebrate all the money they got and the buildings they got and all the good things they did and eliminate any time for discussion. And then when there's anything meaty, in spite of the fact that this is a public meeting, the rector always wants to go into executive session,

private session, clear the room and turn off the streaming video. And to do anything because of the public meeting rules, you have to do all these, you know, one at a time calls, as I was talking about. So I think going into executive session completely, you know, obfuscates and is antithetical to the public meeting rules. I think we ought to talk about issues and strategy of the university in public so the public knows that we're dealing with it.

Anti-Semitism was something that I wanted to talk about and how we're dealing with it or not dealing with it. In my view, we were not dealing with it. Robert wanted to talk about that in open session. I disagreed. He told me I was out of order when I said basically, so what, you know, bring it on. You know, so that was the, the quote. And several of my board members thought that that's not the way a board should run.

We should be gentlemen. Again, I got the Virginia gentleman speech. And again, I didn't raise my voice or yell or throw an obscenity in the process or call anybody a name. I just said we need to talk about this. I think we needed to talk about the shootings in public. I think the report is BS that that report took two years to come out and then was redacted to the point that all you saw was the page numbers. There was no content in the report. And that's all a vehicle to hide the fact that this university completely dropped the ball on the shooter. That shooting should never have happened. Never, never, never.

And there were so many red flags at this university. You know, should have seen and could have done something about it and didn't. So they did a two-year report to hide the ball, settled out with the families as they should have, and then redacted the hell out of the report and turned that out and said, okay, we're done, move on. And did it all in executive session.

I think that's wrong. There was other things we've done in executive session that I think we should have done in the public. The public should have known we had done our homework. We were addressing a problem and we were gonna make a fix. The public may not like the fix we proposed and or we voted on, but the public should have seen the discussion.

I agree. I agree. Deshaun Perry's mother, one of the football players who was murdered, she was quoted in local media. The report that I received, her words, these are her words, the report that I received, I could not forward the report to any family member via email. I could not print the report for my own safekeeping and everything that I read, I learned more in Jim Hingley's courtroom in

Alamaro County and the legal proceedings than I did from this investigative report. And then she closes, and it breaks my heart as a parent of two boys, breaks my heart here. She closes by saying, I just want to know what happened to my son the day he was murdered. And that's heartbreaking. And I am totally sympathetic. Why is the University of Virginia that concerned with legal exposure, legal fallout, and having to pay out a bag of money that it's not going to be communicative to the parents

of murdered children on grounds? I mean, is that what this is completely about, to diminish and to minimize as much legal exposure as possible? Of course, there's always that factor in the discussion. This university's got plenty of money and they can afford to pay out for major FUBARs that they did or that were caused by the university's operations.

The university's got a number of other lawsuits that are going to be very material expenses to the university. And they're not being discussed in public. And some of the, you know, you don't need to discuss everything in public and how you're going to defend a lawsuit, but this was more than just a lawsuit. Yeah, this is a triple murder on grounds. I want to put a slight, put a pin in this for now and to segue to the next investigation that is extremely mainstream and that's the University of Virginia Health System. I see a boatload of physicians that are watching the program now.

And this UVA Health System, I've called it alleged white collar racketeering where rank and file, but in this circumstance rank and file employees are legitimately doctors and physicians. 128 of them anonymously have alleged or claimed that the University of Virginia health system, which is the financial driver of the University of Virginia, an outfit that does billions of dollars a year, billions with a B, and top line gross revenues through medical collections. These 128 rank and file physicians have said,

we are in an ecosystem of employment where our C-suite is telling us to, I mean, frankly, change medical charts to maintain performance standards. I mean, that's what it is. And to fraudulently bill or upcharge or up code or whatever we wanna call it, patients in their most vulnerable state when they're sick and dying

so the health system can make more money. And we're threatened that if we don't do these things, maintain performance standards and fraudulently bill our patients that we may get, we may not get promotions, we may get demotions and we could be in the crossfire of Craig Kett C-suite. Since these allegations have materialized, this has been a cat fight of embarrassment proportions, embarrassing proportions. I mean, we got a letter that came out yesterday from UVA faculty senate,

from the top physicians in their field sent to us as well. It's a he said, she said that you would see in a high school cafeteria, certainly not in one of the most acclaimed and accredited hospital systems in the country. I want to start open-ended Bert and get your perspective on the UVA health system fallout and what the heck is going on right here. Well there are some significant problems in River City. There are some significant things that were done wrong at the health system by the management

team. And the 128 doctors that came together and wrote that letter are some very, very prominent and successful and revered doctors in the health system. I know a number of them. They brought to our attention some points that the board should have known and Jim Ryan should have known that we're going on at the health system. And I think we should have taken as the board, we should have taken action quicker.

The board hired yet again, another consultant Williams and Connelly and spent four million bucks and, you know, four or five months, you know, to conclude that there were some very significant problems, you know, that I thought we would have, we could have, we knew two weeks after we got the, you know, the letter from the doctors. And the doctors had, you know, did their own report, which was also submitted to the board, you know, which basically said the same things and it was free.

It was done by them. You know, and, you know, we made changes at the top. I think there's a significant amount of additional managerial changes that need to be made at the whole health system. And then it was further complicated by four of the prior rectors got in the middle of it and wrote a letter that all the doctors are wrong. got in the middle of it and wrote a letter that all the doctors are wrong, you know, and you know. Not only did they say they were wrong, they said

that these doctors are motivated by money and greed and that's the motivation of this alleged smear campaign. It's way worse than calling them wrong. Well, they blamed it all on money, and I thought that letter was totally bogus and necessitated a response. And the board needs to call a special meeting and bring this to a head and solve it. Now all this stuff festered under Jim Ryan's watch. Craig Kent was asked to resign and did for the issues that surfaced in both of the third party reports. But Jim Ryan didn't resign, and he should have. He was totally culpable. Why did Craig Kent resign? What happened in the Craig Kent resignation? Was it surprising? And how bad was that investigative report? I just threw a lot of questions to you here, but these are the questions that

everyone's asking right now. The investigative report was very damning and it was, you know, it put it to the board that we either, you know, had to, you know, we needed his resignation or we needed to fire one or the other. So he saw the writing on the wall and realized that, you know, he didn't have the support of the board and he resigned. Did the investigation, the investigative report confirm that fraudulent billing practices were utilized and that medical chart changing was being used to maintain performance standards?

No. You know, fraudulent is a, you know, many different medical, you know, operations upcharge, you know, and, you know, and upcharge, you know, if you just say any upcharge is a fraudulent upcharge, no. You know, it's a, there's a gray area. So you know, there were upcharging and, you know, and that's one of the ways if you're running a hospital or a medical installation, you know, a medical facility that you do your best to take advantage of the Medicare payment

methodologies to get maximum payment? That just from a layman's perspective, that seems to be up charging and exploiting the gray area and pushing it as far as possible possible seems to be right and pretty darn close to start contrast to what honor code is all about. Well, I can't say that I saw anything that, you know, looked fraudulent to me. But you'd have to look at every charge to do that. But there were a number of other things that, you know, added together, created a track record that necessitated change. The leadership of the health system was going on the wrong direction and they

were running completely afoul of their doctors. At the same time, the leadership of the health system was trying to change the compensation system for the doctors. I know when you run a team and you start to try and change the compensation system, the incentives, the rewards, you will get some blowback. So there was some genuine blowback to that. But I think the path that they were on to try and address and make the operation more efficient and more profitable was a correct path. But there were other things that were being done that were not.

Craig Kent, who resigned as CEO of the UVA Health System was clashing with the University Physicians Group. He wanted to diminish, if not do away with the University Physicians Group and roll it under one umbrella where he had total control and total autonomy and power. Did Craig Kent get a payday to go away? He kept his

his severance. He didn't get paid to go away, but you know his remaining compensation. Yeah and that's the benefit of residing versus firing. Correct. Jim Ryan's management of the UVA health system fiasco has left a lot to be desired. He stepped in a pile of you know what from a public relations standpoint when he authored that initial letter in response to the anonymous 128 physicians. He basically called the anonymous 128 physicians who interestingly left a bottle of top shelf scotch outside our studio

one morning after we've covered this story line. I got a bottle of top shelf scotch with a letter that said thank you, anonymous 128. And Mr. Ryan pretty much called them crybabies and said that in any organization there's a small percentage of employees that are bitter and angry, and they should be ignored. This really rankled the Anonymous 128, and got them to dig even deeper their heels and their fight into the proverbial ground. Give us some perspective into Jim Ryan's

PR management, overall management, leadership skills, lack thereof with this UVA health fiasco, and I think it is a natural segue into the pro-Palestine pepper spraying protests when the Virginia State Police was militarized and pepper sprayed students. I think it's a natural segue into how he's managed

this redacted triple homicide under his watch. I mean, there's a number of points of concern here. The Ziana Bryant, Water Street, where a student is it Morgan Bettinger? That was Scarlett lettered by Zyanna Bryant who in shocking capacity is running for Charlottesville City School Board right now. She's gonna be instructed, she's gonna be, if she wins, has the opportunity to manage

a significant portion of the city of Charlottesville's budget and to determine the educational ecosystem for the next generation of public school students in the city of Charlottesville, that leaves me jaw on the table, flabbergasted. Talk to us about all these, look, when it's one situation, it's, you know, fool me once, you know, shame on you, fool me once, you know, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Here when it comes to Ryan, there is a cacophony

of comedic errors from a management standpoint. You could, it's very simple in my view, Jerry, that this university can be moved to the right, not to turn this into Hillsdale or something like that, but moved from a hard left, if you will, a much more tolerant university, a university with much more divergence of opinion and thought and hiring and course offerings at all, but only if you change the leadership. Jim Ryan's got to go. He's worn out his welcome.

This board, the Young Canites, want to move the university towards the middle. Jim Ryan wants to steer the university hard left. You can't make the boat go right if the captain on the helm is steering it to the left. You have this time to change. If you do change this, you can make so many other changes that would solve the other issues we were just talking about. The provost job is open right now and there is a great opportunity for the board to put a moderate in as the provost.

I don't think there are any conservative provosts out there to hire, but there is a very, very good candidate at the university to put in the provost. I'm very, very happy that Vermont plucked Ian out and opened that position. But the two positions are the ones that the board needs to change. And the board has the votes to do it. One of the things I was trying to do with my fellow board members was to make enough changes that would drive Jim Ryan nuts so that he would resign and open up that position. But now the board has the votes. It only takes 12 votes to terminate the president and there's 13. I think about half the board members are ready to terminate the president. And there's 13.

And I think about half the board members are ready to do it right now. The other half are either on the fence or don't want to do it, don't want the blowback, really like Jim Ryan, you know, blah, blah, blah. But if the governor says, you're my 13, it's now, it's time, do it. And it'll happen. The governor is schizophrenic about Jim Ryan. He's not sure if he likes him or doesn't like him or if he's manageable or salvageable. I'm not schizophrenic. He's got to go. But we only have six months to do it. There's an election in November and I'm, and you know, I'm

rooting for Winsome and I've sent money into Winsome and I hope a Republican will succeed Glenn and if so, you know, then this board will be in control of the situation for three, four, five, six more years. If not, the new governor, Ms. Spanberger, she can terminate the whole board. The governor says, no, you can't terminate. And I said, well, if you're going to terminate me for conduct violations, she can terminate everybody too. It's a bogus reason. Theoretically, I could only be terminated for misfeasance, malfeasance, incompetence or complete dereliction of duty. And none of those was I even close to. So violation of code of conduct, I was caustic. So she could do the same. So you got the votes

right now. And I'm hoping that Winsome will win, but you know, hope is not a strategy. Right now the strategy is you got the votes right now, so use them. And if they use them, they can change the leadership. The other thing that I am a huge advocate of that will radically change this university for the better for everybody is to cut, you know, I think as much as 500 million out of the budget. The budget of this university is $5.8 billion

between the health system and the academic division. About 60% of that, the health division. If you cut 500 million, which is 10% of the budget, and there's no businessman or woman that I know that could not take their company and take 20% of the costs out of that company without hitting bone. You can't do it every single year, but if you haven't ever done it, you can easily do it. This is only 10%.

If you'd cut 500 million out of the budget of this university, in the process you're going to cut a lot of duplicative services that we don't need to do, a lot of administrative bloat, a lot of insane programs that we provide, some of which got started for one reason or another, but never ended as the case is with most government and academia. You could use that 500 million to reduce tuition, 10 to 15,000 a family, a person. Each 100 million bucks divided by 20,000 some odd students is 5,000 of tuition. So if you cut 500 million out of this budget, which you can, and then cut the DEI and all the other stuff that we want to get by doing it, and cut tuition, and move this university towards the middle on dealing with anti-Semitism, dealing with cancel culture, dealing with all the identity politics, you know, horse hockey that we have incorporated into the system.

You can make a mark in academia that no other school has the ability to do and no other school has got the reputation and the brand at the University of Virginia. We become that shining light on the hill and we can do it. We have the votes to do it, but it won't happen if we don't do it now. Right now. Does the governor fire Jim Ryan? It's in his power and if he does do it all those changes can happen and if he doesn't do it no changes will happen. Jim Ryan is up, you know, he is running his own version of the Four Corners. It's just gonna juke and jive, delay, delay, delay, wait for Abby Spanberger to get like it. The Four Corners, the legendary offense the North Carolina Tar Heels ran, for those that are unsure of Dean Smith's

playbook. You're a man with your business success that has vision and is able to see forward. And because of that vision, you hedge risk with business decision-making. I'll try a different version of this question here. As a man who's got a lot of vision, Bert Ellis, does your instinct say that the final exit for Governor Yonkin out of the mansion in Richmond is a pink slip for Jim Ryan?

I'm betting on it, so yes. Like I said, his presidency, and it's documented on the show that we do, I mean the show that we do is documented all over the internet, so nothing can get taken out of context. His presidency started, as I characterized, with the approachability and the affability and the likability of Barack Obama when he was running for U.S. president. And that's not about Democrat or Republican or conservative or liberal. Barack Obama, you have to give it to the former president

with his tie is half-mast and his sleeves is rolled up and his all-shucks type of personality. The most likable guy ever. Jim Ryan started the same way as he was running around grounds and encouraging students and community members to follow him. He started these community organizations, these work groups where he was asking community

members to say, how can UVA make this community a better place? And then during COVID, he was perched at his desk in his president's office and saying, follow me, we'll get through this pandemic together. And I'm like, this guy's fantastic. And then over the last 36 months, the last 24 to 36 months, I've seen blunder after blunder after blunder. And each blunder, has the man ever said, I'm sorry? Has he ever said, I've done this wrong, that I made a mistake here? It seems like all the blunders and the mistakes and the leadership errors have been convoluted or clouded or hidden through redacted reports

or through these like the proverbial cloak and dagger. And it's that like hidden nature of responding to issue that I have a problem with. And frankly speaking, my dad's a 72 graduate of UVA. My brother went to UVA. I went to UVA with nothing more than our boys to go to University of Virginia. We live in Ivy.

We live 10 minutes. It would make my wife's whole world to keep her boys close to her. Bert, I do not even recognize the University of Virginia anymore. This is not the University of Virginia that we attended. It's certainly not the one that my dad attended. I do not recognize this school anymore and I hate to say this, it falls on the feet of the president.

That's what the honor system, which you opened with, the honor system is dead, you know, right now, effectively dead. I am the eternal optimist that think it can be rejuvenated, but if it's going to be rejuvenated, it is going to take an entirely concerted effort from every aspect of this university. University. Our last two presidents have basically ignored it and let it disintegrate. I've lived my whole life based on my experience with the honor system from 50 years ago, as your dad had and other of my contemporaries. I've lived my whole life on the basis of I trust you until you prove that I can't, as opposed the other way around. I lived in a community of honor that we self-policed, and that was a distinction that made the University of Virginia great. You know, there were very few places that could match our honor system, mostly the military academies,

few other schools, but we were the premier and we just let that completely go away. And then in the process we let our university guides get taken over by a bunch of numbnuts that they think the whole process of giving a tour is to trash the university. I've told the tour guides, the last thing I would do is let one of my salesmen bring a prospect on and tell them our product stinks and the founder is a crook. That's not the way you sell the university. And it's not true.

Amen, brother. I mean, viewers and listeners, if you're not following that storyline, the university guide service, a guide service led by students, was choosing on their own accord to interpret the brand image of the University of Virginia and interpret its history based on what they were feeling that day or based on what the team was determining the commentary should be. So when prospective students, your moms, your dads,

little Johnnies and little Susies decide to visit the University of Virginia for freshman or sophomore year of high school to determine whether they wanted to go there. These guides were telling the mommies and the daddies and the little Johnnies and the little Susies, oh, oh, the University of Virginia, its founder Thomas Jefferson, he was raping slaves and these buildings were built by, under the watch of slaves or with the, it was just not a representation of what the University of Virginia was trying to convey today

to prospective students. And the interpretation or the ability to offer commentary on a whim was concerning, and it was being reported, and nothing was being done about it. And it was just, like he said, why would you allow a salesman for your organization to trash the organization,

and then put the rate card in front of the client, and say, will you sign on the bottom line? I mean, it just absolutely makes no sense. Yeah, and the university administration, and the board knew none of this. But, you know, the fact that I spend 10 days a month in Charlottesville to give myself time to really know what's happening at the university, and I went on 11 university guide tours and just showed up, didn't wear a I'm a board member badge and just listened. Then made mental notes and wrote them down. I made Jim and his team take some of the tours and I made our former rector take the

tours and said, wow, these are really bad. Yeah, they're really, really, really bad. But it's not just those. The RAs, our resident advisors, that whole program has gotten completely perverted by the woke nonsense you know and You know when you were here when I was there, what did our RAs do and I lived on the you know You know the dorms my first year and the lawn my last year You know they helped us figure out where the bathroom was and you know needed a riser for your bed

So you go, you know, they told you where to go get it where the best place to get towels were you know they helped you if you had a you know roommate you know issue they would help you figure it out and stuff like that you know but that's what they were for and we didn't need a whole lot of them you know but now they've got all these other these just absolutely insane programs. And if you go to the RA office and you go look at what they do or go to their website, you'd just absolutely be appalled. And all that stuff just needs to go. But it all grew under Teresa Sullivan and then Jim Ryan's watch. And guys, the collateral damage of that bloat is the obscene tuition fees that in-state and out-of-state students are paying.

You want this kind of learning environment, then out-of-state students get ready for a year at the University of Virginia to cost you just under $100,000. And in-state students get ready for that year at the University of Virginia to escalate year after year after year to the point where we are flirting with Ivy League overhead with students. And I would love the Ivy League pedigree or acclaim, but we certainly don't want the Ivy League bill. This is a public university, ladies and gentlemen.

I have a few more questions for you as we wrap up the interview. We're very grateful for your time and we're also very considerate of your time, Bert. I want to ask you about the the the pro-Palestine pepper spraying protest which is about a year from now, the one-year anniversary of that. That turned into debacle as well under Jim Ryan's watch. I start each topic with an open-ended question. What did you make of what you saw on the lawn with that protest? Something that started over pro-Palestine? Something that crescendoed over tents and camping out on the grounds at the University of Virginia? And frankly something that de-noumane and

finished with the state police pepper spraying students? Some of it should never have started. We have a law, anti-masking laws in the state and we as the board told the administration to enforce the anti-masking rule, which Jim Ryan's administration refuses to do. But the Hamasites, as I call them, I'm not going to give them, let them win the narrative that they're pro-Palestine. They're just Hamasites that have been out there protesting.

And fine for them to have a peaceful protest. I think it needs to be a peaceful protest under the rules of the university. And doing so completely masked is not permitted. They became very antagonistic to any Jews that were trying to show support for Israel while they were theoretically showing support for Palestine. So some of that was okay by me. They're students. They get to protest. It all led up to the May 4th and the confrontation between the chapel and the rotunda.

And quite frankly, I give Jim Ryan positive points for bringing that thing to a head and getting rid of it. They should never have allowed those protesters to bring lumber and tents to the place in the first place. But once it became apparent that they were going to assemble them and create a permanent village, protesting village, a la Columbia, UCLA, and some of the very notable protest sites that, you know, had been implemented at other colleges. You know, they, you know, they took action. I think what Chief Longo and the state police did was exactly right. They in favor of that. Who issued the order to militarize the state police and pepper spray the students if need be? I don't know. You know and I

don't know if it was Richmond or Madison Hall or Tim Longo that did it, but I applaud them all. I think that's the way you got to deal with stuff like that. Last question on this topic. What's the crossroads of free speech and protest and universities look like in your eyes? I think, yeah, free speech is absolutely imperative. And you get to say things I don't like, and I get to say things you don't like. There is a way to do it, and there is a place to do it, and you have to do it in such a way that the party that's speaking

their mind is not obstructed and not physically assaulted. And if you want to object to them in a civil manner, I think it's, you know, civility is the part that we're missing. And you can vehemently disagree and do so civilly. And you can take your time, you can take your place when it's your turn, you raise your hand, you make your peace. You don't try and shout out the other side. You don't flood their meeting with folks that are just going to yell and

scream so they can't make their point. But colleges should be a place where you can try out your opinion on somebody else who's equally smart, if not smarter than you, and hear them argue back. That's what I would never want the university, our university or any other university to change from that. Let's close with this. And I'm grateful for your time. I think the interview is one of the best shows we've ever done. I think the response that you'll hear on your end will be pretty significantly positive as well. And I'm being told here by the team

that we count nine various media outlets that are watching the show right now. Burt Ellis, the man here, what has he learned about this entire process? And then second part of the question, any aspects of this entire process, this entire novella, any aspects do you regret personally? Well, I regret I don't get to finish the mission.

But if the mission is finished by my former colleagues, I'm right there rooting them on. My replacement, Ken Cuccinella, I am wishing him the best. I'm sort of puzzled that the governor's appointment, because he did not put a wallflower on the board to replace me. So I think it's great. I think it's great. I think he'll do a fantastic job and I'm rooting for him. I'm rooting for my other 12 colleagues and I'll be rooting for the four more that the governor gets to appoint. I will be pushing them from the cheap seats, not on the front row anymore, but I'll be pushing them from the cheap seats to move fast. You got six months. I appreciate your time Bert Ellis. Thank you. I look forward to

continuing the line of communication with you. You've given us an hour and change of your time. The commentary was compelling and authentic and I think that is you in a lot of ways, authentic to the T in authentic. Thank you, Bert Ellis, for your perspective today. You have a good afternoon, sir. Thank you, Jerry. Happy to do it again with you. Okay, take care.

We will gladly take you up on that. Bert Ellis, ladies and gentlemen, on the I Love Seville show. An hour and 11 minutes, 71 minutes with Mr. Ellis there. Thank you sir for your most precious commodity or time on the show. This interview is gonna be archived wherever you get your podcasting or social media content. And frankly, would not be surprised if this interview is the foundation for some additional media coverage in the news cycle.

And I've offered this perspective in the past on the show. Could some things have been done differently by Mr. Ellis course. There's like 25 things that I could have done differently today alone by lunchtime while I was eating my lunch. I was thinking about it, man I could have done these things differently. We all could have done things differently. Hindsight, That's why we call it 2020. With the benefit of hindsight, what do you have been as boom, outgoing, boom-bastic, outspoken? I mean, I think he highlighted in the middle

of the interview that perhaps he shouldn't have, after Governor Yonkin made the national media tour saying that DEI was killed at UVA, perhaps he shouldn't have done Mr. Ellis' own tour saying that, oh no, it's not. That didn't make the governor look good. And that Washington Post news story that cited anonymous sources,

and Mr. Ellis thinks those anonymous sources, he directly said it was Jim Ryan and the vice president of communications at UVA, called him out by name. That story really got the exit of Ellis from the Board of Visitors gaining even more momentum. Because that story did not make Burt Ellis look bad. It made the governor of Virginia look bad. So Glenn Yonkin, your cabinet, your team, your lieutenants, maybe it's you if you hear

this, how you manage the firing of Burt Ellis, this makes you look bad, Glenn Yonkin. It makes you look like you used somebody who you appointed just a short while ago to the most powerful and influential board at the University of Virginia, one of the top public universities in the world. And the man you appointed in Bert Ellis was instructed by you to crack some eggs to

make an omelet and that omelet was the complete 180 revamp of UVA. And when the cherry on the Sunday, diversity, equity, inclusion, when that started getting some eradication momentum, you took that as an opportunity to tout your own horn, to pat yourself on the back. And you did a national tour, you patted yourself on the back and said look what I did. And then after you got your flowers from national media, you then kicked your lieutenant, the one that got you there, to the curb as if it was Tuesday morning in Ivy, Virginia and trash pickup was going on

at the Miller house. And that's wrong Governor Glenn Youngkin. That is wrong. And that Washington Post news story where if, and these were Bert Ellis's words, if Jim Ryan was one of those sources and if his lieutenant, the director of communications, were one of the sources in that Washington Post news story, they made you look terrible. They made you look terrible because in that news, you're portrayed as a man that is asking one of your appointees to lie and to embody a disingenuous strategy to get off a board you appointed. You said, why don't you call it health issues or the fact that you're too busy and resign from the board.

You wanted him to be the fall guy for his own discharge from the board. You wanted him to be the fall guy for his own discharge from the board. That speaks to your integrity sir and the sad thing is that you've got a handful of months before your term is left has run out and your handful of months before your term is run out is what people remember of your term. I want you to hear that again. It's not going to be the business success that you like to tout and the economic development you like to tout across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Governor Youngkin, it's not going to be how you manage the pandemic and got the Commonwealth out of COVID or how you beat Terry McAuliffe because Terry McAuliffe is a bonehead times three times, times three when he said parents should not have a say in their kids' public school education. I mean, Terry McCullough, that was a fool's error. That's not what folks are going to remember. They're going to remember the final chapter of your term.

And this final chapter right now ain't looking so good. Appreciate Bert Ells for joining us on the program. Gained a lot of respect for the man. Don't agree with everything that he's done. Don't agree with everything that he's done. But I respect someone who is true to themselves. They are unabashed, unafraid to be who they are. I respect that. It takes a lot of courage to wake up every day

and to be so confident in yourself that you look in the mirror and say, this is who I am, like me or dislike me, this is who I am. And when you can embody that mindset, you're not thinking about keeping up with the Joneses and what other people are thinking of you in life. It offers a level of superpower that allows you to do other things because you're not distracted from priorities. Judah Wickhauer is behind the camera. He made this interview possible.

The show in the network, he deserves a lot of credit for what's happening here. Judah Wickauer. For Burt Ellis, my name is Jerry Miller and it's the Wednesday April 9th edition of the I Love Seville show. Thank you.