The Trump administration has opened up yet another investigation into George Mason University in what many students, faculty and lawmakers fear is an attempt to oust GMU President Gregory Washington.
The Justice Department announced yesterday (Thursday) that its Civil Rights Division is investigating Virginia’s largest public university for allegedly “discriminatory” employment practices — specifically its past commitments to increase representation and support for women and people of color.
“Our investigation is based on information that GMU may be engaged in employment practices that discriminate against employees, job applicants, and training program participants based on race and sex in violation of Title VII,” DOJ Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a letter to the GMU Board of Visitors. “Specifically, we have reason to believe that during Gregory Washington’s tenure as president of GMU, race and sex have been motivating factors in faculty hiring decisions to achieve ‘diversity’ goals.”
Title VII refers to the provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion and national origin when it comes to employment.
In his letter, Dhillon doesn’t indicate whether any specific individuals have alleged discrimination at Mason. Instead, he points to Washington’s public announcement on July 23, 2020 that he was creating a Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence amid nationwide racial justice protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers.
Among other reforms, Washington said Mason would review its policies and practices related to faculty salaries, promotion and tenure to address any “racist vestiges” and ensure the university is providing support to women, people of color and other “underrepresented groups.”
As evidence for the DOJ’s investigation, Dhillon also cites:
- “Internal documents” indicating that Mason has a policy of listing the race of people on faculty hiring panels to encourage greater participation by non-white individuals
- A recorded forum on racial justice and inclusion from November 2020 featuring members of the anti-racism task force
- A June 2022 tweet by Washington that appears to have since been deleted where he praised an employee involved in the university’s diversity initiatives
The DOJ investigation is the third that the Trump administration has launched against GMU this month. The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights is scrutinizing the university over complaints alleging antisemitism and violations of Civil Rights Act Title VI, which bars racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funding.
Torridon Law, the firm hired by the GMU Board of Visitors to handle the investigations, didn’t return a request for comment by press time.
In a statement on Wednesday (July 16), Washington said the university will “cooperate fully” with the Education Department’s civil rights office, but it “strongly rejects” the characterization of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as unlawful racial discrimination.
“Our diversity efforts are designed to expand opportunity and build inclusive excellence – not to exclude or advantage any group unlawfully,” Washington said, stating that Mason has no “mechanisms” encouraging preferential treatment of faculty for promotions or tenure based on race.
He noted that the Civil Rights Act was enacted in response to decades of segregation that denied Black people in particular denied access to schools, jobs and public services, but inclusive hiring practices, targeted scholarships and other programs designed to rectify inequality are now being recast as violations of the law.
“Broad terms like ‘illegal DEI’ are now used without definition, allowing virtually any initiative that touches on identity or inclusion to be painted as discriminatory,” Washington wrote. “This shift represents a stark departure from the spirit in which civil rights law was written: not to erase difference, but to protect individuals from exclusion and to enable equal opportunity for all.”
In a new statement released this afternoon (Friday), Washington highlighted the context of his comments singled out by the DOJ and defended Mason’s diversity-related initiatives as consistent with state law.
“It is inaccurate to conclude that we created new university policies or procedures that discriminated against or excluded anyone,” he wrote. “To the contrary, our systems were enhanced to improve on our ability to consistently include everyone for consideration of every employment opportunity. That is our ethos and it is core to our identity as a national leader in inclusive excellence in higher education.”
Discrimination allegations ‘absurd,’ professor says
According to the Virginia Mercury and a joint report by ProPublica and the Chronicle for Higher Education, many GMU students, faculty members and even lawmakers have condemned the investigations as a political pressure campaign similar to the one that led University of Virginia president Jim Ryan to resign last month.
Virginia Senate alumni stand with GMU President Gregory Washington. We reject the political attacks on his leadership and call on the U.S. Department of Education to end its sham investigation. Our students deserve better.
— Senator Saddam Azlan Salim (@salimvasenate.bsky.social) July 14, 2025 at 3:16 PM
In a July 14 statement, the Virginia Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) expressed support for Washington, even as it argued that he has, in fact, taken “coercive and repressive” steps to address allegations of antisemitism and “systematically dismantled virtually all programs and offices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Following pro-Palestine protests on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the student group Students for Justice in Palestine was suspended, and police and FBI agents raided the home of two of its leaders, who were trespassed from campus. Guns were reportedly found in the home, but no criminal charges were filed.
The GMU Board of Visitors approved a resolution to combat antisemitism in February that opponents argued could be used to suppress free speech, particularly criticism of Israeli policies in Palestine.
In response to a letter from the Education Department threatening to withhold funds from universities that consider race in hiring, admissions and other activities, Washington announced on March that Mason’s Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion would be renamed the Office of Access, Compliance, and Community.
The university has also disbanded the anti-racism task force, terminated affirmative action plans and research projects related to diversity, and dropped the use of diversity statements in hiring and promotion materials, officials told the Board of Visitors in early May. At that meeting, the board considered a resolution banning diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives but ultimately tabled it.
Despite opposing those actions, AAUP Virginia said in its statement that Washington has successfully “built Mason into one of the most dynamic and important universities in the nation while still maintaining Mason’s commitment to access and equal opportunity.”
Hired in 2020, Washington became Mason’s eighth president and the first Black person to lead the Fairfax-based university, which enrolls approximately 40,000 students from all 50 states and 130 countries.
AAUP Virginia President Tim Gibson, a communications professor at Mason, called allegations of discrimination against white job applicants or faculty at Mason “absurd.” While white students are a minority at the university, nearly two-thirds of its full-time instructional faculty are white, while only about 10% are Black or Hispanic, he noted.
“Faculty and students at Mason feel under siege,” Gibson said in a statement to FFXnow. “These investigations on GMU’s diversity and inclusion programs and hiring practices are politically motivated and based on threadbare and flimsy claims.”
Expressing support for diversity and equity programs as means of expanding access to education and fostering “a respectful and welcoming environment,” he contended that the Trump administration is using the civil rights investigations to force out Washington and gain control of Mason — with the support of a Board of Visitors entirely appointed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“Trump and the [Make America Great Again] movement have decided to attack the independence and integrity of universities, so they can exert more control over the production of scientific knowledge in American society,” Gibson said. “Trump, Youngkin, and the MAGA movement want the university to serve their narrow, partisan political interests. That’s what this is all about.”