Post-political career
Wilder has served as a distinguished professor in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. He writes occasional editorials for Virginia newspapers.
Douglas Wilder is the founder of the United States National Slavery Museum, a non-profit organization based in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The museum has been fundraising and campaigning since 2001 to establish a national museum of slavery in America. In June 2008 Wilder requested that the museum be granted tax-exempt status, which was denied. From that time, taxes on the land had not been paid and the property was at risk of being sold at auction by the city of Fredericksburg.
Beset by financial problems, the museum has been assessed delinquent property taxes for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011, amounting to just over $215,000. The organization filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 22, 2011. Early in 2011 Douglas Wilder was refusing to respond to or answer any questions from either news reporters or patrons who had donated artifacts.
Wilder made news in 2012 when he refused to support Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, for another term. He noted that he supported Obama in 2008, but said the president's tenure in the Oval Office thus far had been a disappointment. Wilder did not endorse Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, and later said that he hoped for an Obama victory despite having gone to a Romney fundraiser.
In 2015, Wilder published an autobiography, Son of Virginia: A Life in America's Political Arena.
In March 2018, Wilder filed suit against John Accordino, who was serving as the Dean of his namesake college, for harassing Wilder's assistant. This led to Accordino stepping down from his position and Susan Gooden being named as the interim dean of the college and then Wilder dropping the suit 4 months after filing.
In March 2019, Sydney Black filed a complaint under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 against Wilder for sexual harassment after she claims he made sexual advances to her, which she rebuffed, and then told her later that there was no funding for her position at the Virginia Commonwealth University. In July 2019, the university's independent investigator concluded that Wilder did kiss the student without her consent. In response, Wilder provided a detailed rebuttal, in which he denied "non-consensual sexual contact” between Black and him. In addition, he denied retaliating against her by saying her position had been eliminated. Wilder also claimed the investigator ignored contradictory evidence, including his claim that Black called him eight times after the night during which he supposedly kissed her, something she presumably would not have done if she felt harassed or threatened. The university planned to consider the investigator's findings and Wilder's rebuttal before deciding what action to take, if any. On October 24, 2019, Wilder announced that the university's internal review panel had cleared him of wrongdoing.
In 2020, Wilder raised concerns that the state archives at the Library of Virginia had failed to provide access to the records of his gubernatorial administration.
In 2021, following the gubernatorial election of Republican Glenn Youngkin, Wilder joined Governor Youngkin's transition team, alongside former Republican governors Jim Gilmore, Bob McDonnell, and George Allen.
In March 2025, Wilder was alleged to have contributed to the firing of a faculty member at VCU. In the summer, Wilder sued a pair of VCU leaders over a workplace investigation involving him over claims that he created a toxic workplace environment, claiming that it was retaliatory for his past criticisms of the school leadership. A heavily redacted report, prepared by an outside law firm and received by The Richmonder, said that the complaints that led to the investigation had only been made by one person, and that no one else had described the workplace as toxic or threatening.
On January 17, 2026, his 95th birthday, Wilder attended the inauguration of Virginia's first female governor Abigail Spanberger, first Muslim lieutenant governor, Ghazala Hashmi, and first black attorney general, Jay Jones.
