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, mentioned 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 mentioned. His administration had taken in depth 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 subsequent 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 velocity with which conservative information retailers reported on the OCR’s motion, which hadn’t been publicly introduced. The OCR letter was embedded in a July 2 article printed by a right-wing information outlet, The Washington Free Beacon. The following day, the Metropolis Journal, printed 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 applications” — referring to range, fairness and inclusion efforts — and failing to deal with campus antisemitism. It concluded that “Washington’s monitor report warrants his resignation or dismissal.”
The similarities to current occasions at one other public college in Virginia have 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, announced that he was resigning to assist settle a federal probe into the college’s DEI commitments.
That occurred after a bunch of conservative College of Virginia alumni, the Jefferson Council, printed weblog entries and newspaper adverts decrying the president — partly for focusing too closely on range efforts — and demanding that he resign. The council’s connections to board members and Justice Division legal professionals led many observers in increased training to conclude that Ryan’s compelled resignation was the results of a coordinated assault.
Now, Washington is feeling the identical warmth coming from comparable 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 workers. The division mentioned it was performing on complaints from “a number of professors” at GMU.
In a press assertion Thursday, Craig Trainor, the Training Division’s performing assistant secretary for civil rights, instructed 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, carried out underneath the guise of so-called ‘Variety, Fairness, and Inclusion,’ not solely enable however champion unlawful racial preferencing in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This type of pernicious and wide-spread discrimination — packaged as ‘anti-racism’ — was allowed to flourish underneath the Biden Administration, however it is not going to be tolerated by this one,” he wrote.
The college rebutted those accusations in a statement 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 retailers, which is unprecedented in our expertise,” the assertion mentioned. “As all the time, we’ll work in good religion to offer a full and immediate response.”
In the meantime, dozens of Jewish college members at GMU have signed on to an announcement 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 mentioned he had detected a sample that’s been taking part in 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 mentioned throughout an interview Wednesday. “The identical people who find themselves type of aligned that removed Jim Ryan are aligned towards me.”
He finds the timing of the assaults towards him and his college troubling.
“Provided that the Workplace for Civil Rights doesn’t publicly announce who’s underneath investigation, we have been questioning how these conservative retailers even acquired the data within the first place,” Washington mentioned. The “virtually hateful discussions of me” within the Metropolis Journal article seemed like “a concerted effort to attempt to paint the establishment in a unfavorable mild.”
Washington mentioned the piece appeared to be urging the Trump administration to take the investigation to the subsequent degree, the Division of Justice, which may levy punishments towards 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 will probably be unbiased, the Trump administration has already reached a verdict on the establishment’s president and desires him out. As proof, they level to a web 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 at the moment are being leveled at GMU President Greg Washington,” the campus chapter of the American Affiliation of College Professors wrote in an online post. “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 Instances-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 removing of college presidents — are eerily just like these lodged towards Ryan,” they wrote. “They embrace imprecise and politically charged accusations centered round ‘DEI’ and solutions that the college’s administration has been insufficiently aware of issues raised by Jewish college students about their security on campus. That’s even if the college’s leaders have repeatedly and publicly condemned antisemitism and really 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 training 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 atmosphere 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 data.
Warner and Kaine are skeptical that the investigation will probably be truthful and neutral: Of their opinion piece, they mentioned it’s extra possible “to function one more smokescreen to punish universities and leaders who don’t align with their ideological targets.”
Some George Mason college members share these issues.
“Whenever you begin seeing these hit items come out one after one other in a matter of days, it’s coordinated,” Bethany L. Letiecq, a professor within the Faculty of Training and Human Growth, mentioned in an interview.
Certainly, increased training leaders have accused the Division of Justice’s Process Power to Fight Anti-Semitism, which formally oversees investigations by a number of federal businesses, of ignoring procedures supposed to offer 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 range efforts and different examples of what they see as increased training’s “woke” insurance policies. The creator 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 range, fairness and inclusion initiatives, is among the many contributing editors at Metropolis Journal.
Such critics are properly represented in George Mason’s management as properly.
Youngkin, the governor, appointed most of GMU’s governing board, often known as the board of holiday makers. The college’s basic counsel, Anne Gentry, is married to a longtime conservative activist and govt with the Koch Basis, Letiecq identified. “At Mason, the foxes are within the henhouse,” she mentioned. “It’s an inside job.”
Letiecq worries that Youngkin would possibly exert the identical type of affect that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican, has in making an attempt to reshape increased training 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 Faculty that they will take over and take down,” she mentioned. New Faculty of Florida, as soon as a progressive establishment, underwent substantial changes to its curriculum and staff starting in 2023 when DeSantis stacked its board with conservative members.
Neither Kingsbury, the creator 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, mentioned in an announcement that “our reporting speaks for itself.” Metropolis Journal didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Washington defended his report in a public statement on July 3. “As we put together a response to the criticism, it is vital that all of us have an correct understanding of how protected and welcoming the George Mason group is, significantly as we put together to welcome tens of hundreds of scholars to campus in only a few brief weeks,” he wrote.
“George Mason has not been marred by the kind 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 pleased with, and work laborious every day to keep up.”
In 11 messages that have been despatched to the campus group detailing the college’s responses to the Hamas assaults and that have been shared with The Chronicle of Increased 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 habits” of those that have 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 for the reason that final campus demonstration associated to Gaza, Washington mentioned. That protest remained protected and authorized and didn’t disrupt college enterprise. “No encampments have ever fashioned at George Mason, and we is not going to allow them sooner or later,” Washington mentioned. 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 for the reason that horrific Hamas assaults of 2023, so we’re perplexed to be receiving this investigation at the moment. However, we’ll 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 experiences based mostly on antisemitism, in keeping with Rose Pascarell, vice chairman for college life. Final 12 months, that quantity dropped to 12.
Plus, she mentioned, the college “responded totally” to a earlier OCR criticism associated to antisemitism — however by no means heard again from the federal government.
Letiecq mentioned 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 proper and it appears there’s nothing you are able to do to fulfill them,” she mentioned.
George Mason, with greater than 40,000 college students, is essentially the most racially diverse public research university within the state, college officers say. To adjust to Trump’s govt orders, the college has repurposed its DEI workplace to give attention to compliance and group. It has lower six positions, eradicated range 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 range efforts help.
“When you’re a various establishment, it’s important to function from that various framework,” Washington mentioned. “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 mentioned the assaults have 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 mentioned.
Washington says if the college is requested to make vital modifications with out a customary investigation and dialogue of the details, it can take care of that as vital. “We are going to work in good religion to maneuver by means of this,” Washington mentioned. “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 Increased Training.
