When the Training Division’s Workplace for Civil Rights notified George Mason College on July 1 that it was opening an antisemitism investigation based mostly on a current criticism, the college’s president, Gregory Washington, stated he was “perplexed.”
In contrast with different campuses, the place protesters had ransacked buildings and hunkered down in encampments, George Mason had been comparatively quiet over the previous 12 months, he stated. His administration had taken intensive steps to enhance relations with the Jewish group, had enacted strict guidelines on protests and had communicated all of that to the OCR throughout a earlier antisemitism investigation that remained open.
By the following day, although, there have been indicators that the brand new investigation was a part of a coordinated marketing campaign to oust him.
One piece of proof: the pace with which conservative information shops reported on the OCR’s motion, which hadn’t been publicly introduced. The OCR letter was embedded in a July 2 article revealed by a right-wing information outlet, The Washington Free Beacon. The following day, the Metropolis Journal, revealed by the influential and conservative Manhattan Institute, ran an opinion essay headlined “George Mason College’s Disastrous President.” The article accused Washington, the college’s first Black president and a first-generation school graduate, of backing “racially discriminatory DEI packages” — referring to variety, fairness and inclusion efforts — and failing to deal with campus antisemitism. It concluded that “Washington’s monitor document warrants his resignation or dismissal.”
The similarities to current occasions at one other public college in Virginia had been laborious to disregard. The OCR’s George Mason investigation was opened simply 4 days after the College of Virginia’s president, James E. Ryan, introduced that he was resigning to assist settle a federal probe into the college’s DEI commitments.
That occurred after a gaggle of conservative College of Virginia alumni, the Jefferson Council, revealed weblog entries and newspaper advertisements decrying the president — partially for focusing too closely on variety efforts — and demanding that he resign. The council’s connections to board members and Justice Division attorneys led many observers in greater schooling to conclude that Ryan’s compelled resignation was the results of a coordinated assault.
Now, Washington is feeling the identical warmth coming from related sources.
The temperature cranked up a number of levels Thursday morning, when the Training Division notified George Mason that it’s opening a second investigation — this one alleging the college illegally considers race in hiring and selling staff. The division stated it was appearing on complaints from “a number of professors” at GMU.
In a press assertion Thursday, Craig Trainor, the Training Division’s appearing assistant secretary for civil rights, prompt that the company has already reached sweeping conclusions concerning the college’s hiring practices. “Regardless of the management of George Mason College claiming that it doesn’t discriminate on the premise of race, it seems that its hiring and promotion insurance policies and practices from 2020 to the current, applied underneath the guise of so-called ‘Variety, Fairness, and Inclusion,’ not solely permit however champion unlawful racial preferencing in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This sort of pernicious and wide-spread discrimination — packaged as ‘anti-racism’ — was allowed to flourish underneath the Biden Administration, nevertheless it won’t be tolerated by this one,” he wrote.
The college rebutted these accusations in a press release saying it’s complying with all federal and state mandates and doesn’t discriminate. The college “obtained a brand new Division of Training letter of investigation this morning because it was concurrently launched to information shops, which is unprecedented in our expertise,” the assertion stated. “As all the time, we are going to work in good religion to present a full and immediate response.”
In the meantime, dozens of Jewish college members at GMU have signed on to a press release condemning “an assault on our college group and our GMU President that’s shortly intensifying underneath a false, racially divisive, and deeply cynical declare of combating antisemitism.”
Even earlier than Thursday’s announcement, Washington stated he had detected a sample that’s been enjoying out at different universities focused by President Donald Trump’s administration: A number of investigations are filed in fast succession and phrase leaks to information organizations.
“It looks like that is orchestrated,” Washington stated throughout an interview Wednesday. “The identical people who find themselves sort of aligned that removed Jim Ryan are aligned in opposition to me.”
He finds the timing of the assaults in opposition to him and his college troubling.
“On condition that the Workplace for Civil Rights doesn’t publicly announce who’s underneath investigation, we had been questioning how these conservative shops even received the knowledge within the first place,” Washington stated. The “virtually hateful discussions of me” within the Metropolis Journal article appeared like “a concerted effort to attempt to paint the establishment in a damaging gentle.”
Washington stated the piece gave the impression to be urging the Trump administration to take the investigation to the following stage, the Division of Justice, which may levy punishments in opposition to the college.
Many college members at George Mason agree. They fear that regardless of the OCR’s insistence in its letter to the college that its investigation shall be unbiased, the Trump administration has already reached a verdict on the establishment’s president and needs him out. As proof, they level to a net of ties between right-wing information organizations and politicians — together with Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin — in addition to some George Mason board members.
“The identical unfounded and coordinated assaults that pushed Ryan out of UVa are actually being leveled at GMU President Greg Washington,” the campus chapter of the American Affiliation of College Professors wrote in a web-based publish. “We expect the DOJ, Governor Youngkin, and Youngkin’s appointees” to GMU’s governing board “are attempting to power President Washington out to allow them to rent an ideological ally who will impose the Governor’s political ideologies on Mason’s governance and curriculum.”
Late Wednesday, Virginia’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, doubled down on these warnings, publishing an opinion piece within the Richmond Occasions-Dispatch saying that the Trump administration “seems to be eyeing its subsequent goal” with George Mason’s president.
“The accusations — that are pushed by bloggers with ties to ultra-conservative teams with histories of false claims about Mason and advocacy for the elimination of college presidents — are eerily just like these lodged in opposition to Ryan,” they wrote. “They embrace imprecise and politically charged accusations centered round ‘DEI’ and ideas that the college’s administration has been insufficiently aware of considerations raised by Jewish college students about their security on campus. That’s although the college’s leaders have repeatedly and publicly condemned antisemitism and truly been praised by the native Jewish Relations Council and campus Hillel for his or her management and dedication to Jewish members of Mason’s group.”
The schooling division’s July 1 letter notified George Mason that it was investigating a criticism, filed in June, that Jewish college students and college members confronted a hostile setting on the Virginia college between October 2023 and the top of the 2024-2025 tutorial 12 months. It gave the college till July 21 to show over voluminous details about its response to antisemitism complaints.
It additionally assured the college it could take a impartial stance in evaluating the knowledge.
Warner and Kaine are skeptical that the investigation shall be truthful and neutral: Of their opinion piece, they stated it’s extra probably “to function yet one more smokescreen to punish universities and leaders who don’t align with their ideological objectives.”
Some George Mason college members share these considerations.
“While you begin seeing these hit items come out one after one other in a matter of days, you understand it’s coordinated,” Bethany L. Letiecq, a professor within the School of Training and Human Improvement, stated in an interview.
Certainly, greater schooling leaders have accused the Division of Justice’s Process Drive to Fight Anti-Semitism, which formally oversees investigations by a number of federal companies, of ignoring procedures supposed to supply due course of, racing towards predetermined outcomes, after which punishing universities by stripping them of billions of analysis {dollars}.
Washington’s critics have ties to right-wing advocates of eliminating variety efforts and different examples of what they see as greater schooling’s “woke” insurance policies. The writer of the essay calling Washington a “disastrous” president, Ian Kingsbury, has co-published articles selling conservative causes with Jay P. Greene, a senior analysis fellow with The Heritage Basis. Christopher F. Rufo, one of many nation’s most aggressive and influential opponents of variety, fairness and inclusion initiatives, is among the many contributing editors at Metropolis Journal.
Such critics are nicely represented in George Mason’s management as nicely.
Youngkin, the governor, appointed most of GMU’s governing board, referred to as the board of holiday makers. The college’s common counsel, Anne Gentry, is married to a longtime conservative activist and government with the Koch Basis, Letiecq identified. “At Mason, the foxes are within the henhouse,” she stated. “It’s an inside job.”
Letiecq worries that Youngkin may exert the identical sort of affect that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican, has in attempting to reshape greater schooling to suit a conservative playbook. Neither Youngkin nor the board of holiday makers instantly responded to requests for remark.
“I’ve suspected that Youngkin, in his quest for political capital, has been following the DeSantis playbook and sees Mason as a possible New School that they will take over and take down,” she stated. New School of Florida, as soon as a progressive establishment, underwent substantial modifications to its curriculum and workers starting in 2023 when DeSantis stacked its board with conservative members.
Neither Kingsbury, the writer of the Metropolis Journal piece, nor the Division of Training responded to inquiries concerning the patterns Washington noticed. Eliana Johnson, editor of the Washington Free Beacon, stated in a press release that “our reporting speaks for itself.” Metropolis Journal didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Washington defended his document in a public assertion on July 3. “As we put together a response to the criticism, it is crucial that all of us have an correct understanding of how protected and welcoming the George Mason group is, notably as we put together to welcome tens of 1000’s of scholars to campus in just some quick weeks,” he wrote.
“George Mason has not been marred by the form of violence that has rocked so many different campuses elsewhere in Virginia and across the nation following the Hamas assaults of 2023. It’s a distinction we’re happy with, and work laborious every day to take care of.”
In 11 messages that had been despatched to the campus group detailing the college’s responses to the Hamas assaults and that had been shared with The Chronicle of Greater Training, his workplace denounced “craven acts of terrorism as we now have seen in Israel,” urged “civil discourse, understanding, and peaceful meeting” on campus and denounced the “disgusting conduct” of those that had been trying to distribute antisemitic leaflets. College leaders coordinated with regulation enforcement to answer two violent antisemitic actions.
It’s been greater than a 12 months because the final campus demonstration associated to Gaza, Washington stated. That protest remained protected and authorized and didn’t disrupt college enterprise. “No encampments have ever fashioned at George Mason, and we won’t allow them sooner or later,” Washington stated. The college was one of many first to introduce a complete security and well-being plan, which stays in impact.
“Our knowledge continues to indicate that the environment has dramatically improved because the horrific Hamas assaults of 2023, so we’re perplexed to be receiving this investigation presently. However, we are going to reply in a forthright, direct, and well timed method to this and any inquiry.”
Within the 2023-2024 tutorial 12 months, the college obtained 31 bias-incident studies based mostly on antisemitism, in response to Rose Pascarell, vp for college life. Final 12 months, that quantity dropped to 12.
Plus, she stated, the college “responded totally” to a earlier OCR criticism associated to antisemitism — however by no means heard again from the federal government.
Letiecq stated that, in her view, Washington has overreacted, not underreacted, to complaints of antisemitism, instituting restrictions on protests and punishments for protesters that she considers “oppressive.”
“That is an insatiable marketing campaign on the precise and it appears there’s nothing you are able to do to fulfill them,” she stated.
George Mason, with greater than 40,000 college students, is probably the most racially numerous public analysis college within the state, college officers say. To adjust to Trump’s government orders, the college has repurposed its DEI workplace to concentrate on compliance and group. It has lower six positions, eradicated variety coaching and expanded a program in constructive dialogue. All of these modifications are outlined in a prolonged report back to the board. Washington insists, although, that the college gained’t abandon its commitments to the underlying ideas its variety efforts assist.
“If you find yourself a various establishment, you must function from that numerous framework,” Washington stated. “I don’t run away from that. I run towards it.”
DEI expenditures signify 0.1% of the college’s funds, GMU officers say.
Requested why he agreed to talk out publicly when so many presidents have stayed silent to keep away from angering the administration, Washington stated the assaults had been too private to keep away from.
“My philosophy is: Daylight is disinfectant. We’re going to be clear with the group all through the method,” together with the back-and-forth with OCR, he stated.
Washington says if the college is requested to make important modifications and not using a commonplace investigation and dialogue of the information, it should cope with that as crucial. “We are going to work in good religion to maneuver via this,” Washington stated. “We are going to know if we’re given due course of by how they handle our specific case.”
Katherine Mangan is a senior author at The Chronicle of Greater Training.
