George Mason College’s efforts to diversify its workforce violate a civil rights legislation meant to finish segregation, in accordance with the Trump administration.
Following a roughly six-week-long investigation of GMU’s hiring practices, the U.S. Division of Training’s Workplace of Civil Rights (OCR) has discovered that the Northern Virginia-based college violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination primarily based on race in public schooling.
To resolve the alleged violation, the division has proposed an settlement that will require Mason President Gregory Washington to subject an announcement and “personal apology … for promoting unlawful discriminatory practices in hiring, promotion, and tenure processes.”
The college would additionally need to revise any insurance policies deemed noncompliant and conduct annual trainings for employees concerned in hiring and promotional choices.
OCR introduced Friday that Mason leaders would have 10 days to comply with the directives.
“In 2020, University President Gregory Washington called for expunging the so-called ‘racist vestiges’ from GMU’s campus. Without a hint of self awareness, President Washington then waged a university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race,” Training Division Performing Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor mentioned in an announcement, calling the previous 5 years an “unfortunate chapter” in Mason’s historical past.
The Training Division says it launched the Title VI investigation into GMU on July 10 after “multiple” professors filed a criticism that the college was giving “preferential treatment” to job candidates and present college members from “underrepresented” backgrounds.
Although Mason’s U.S. scholar physique for 2024-2025 was racially various, with white college students representing the most important proportion (33.7%), its college and workers, as of July, is greater than 50% white, in accordance with information shared by GMU.
Mason’s eighth president and the primary Black individual within the place, Washington took workplace on July 1, 2020 simply weeks after college students joined nationwide protests in opposition to police brutality, prompting him to ascertain an anti-racism activity pressure and order a assessment of the college’s insurance policies.
Envisioned as a mannequin that different universities might observe, the anti-racism initiatives continued efforts already underway to reckon with namesake George Mason’s historical past as a slaveholder. A memorial to the individuals he enslaved was in the end devoted in April 2022.
When requested in 2021 how Mason might make its workers extra consultant of the coed physique with out illegally concentrating on individuals primarily based on race, Washington famous that solely 30% of the college on the time had been from ethnic minorities or the worldwide group. To draw a extra various workforce, the college must rethink its search processes and what may make somebody the “best” candidate for a job, he argued.
“Our mission of educating and preparing the future leaders of America’s economy and society demands that we recruit people with the full breadth of lived experiences as well as professional backgrounds that our students encounter,” he wrote.
As proof that GMU was violating Title VI, the Training Division factors to that assertion in addition to a requirement that new college hires get accepted by the college’s Workplace of Entry, Compliance, and Neighborhood (OACC), amongst different officers.
Beforehand referred to as the Workplace of Variety, Fairness and Inclusion, the OACC, which oversees lodging for individuals with disabilities and investigations of bias and discrimination complaints, was renamed in March after the Training Division demanded universities finish “race-based decision-making.”
The OCR additionally cites “one high-level university administrator” who mentioned Washington “created an atmosphere of surveillance” when it got here to range in hiring.
Board of Guests critiques proposed settlement
The GMU Board of Guests known as the Training Division’s discovering “a serious matter” and mentioned it’s reviewing the proposed settlement.
“We will continue to respond fully and cooperatively to all inquiries from the Department of Education, the Department of Justice and the U.S. House of Representatives and evaluate the evidence that comes to light,” the board mentioned. “Our sole focus is our fiduciary duty to serve the best interests of the University and the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
The Title VI investigation is considered one of 5 totally different civil rights probes opened by the Trump administration in opposition to Mason this summer time. Others led by the schooling and justice departments give attention to alleged antisemitism, the consideration of race in admissions, and a July 24 decision handed by the GMU School Senate in help of Washington’s management.
How the Board of Guests responds to the Training Division’s findings stays to be seen. It’s subsequent scheduled to fulfill on Sept. 25.
Regardless of fears from many college students, college and group leaders that they’d take away Washington, GMU’s guests — all appointees of Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin — gave him a 1.5% pay elevate at their final assembly on Aug. 1, although college members who participated in a rally to help the president known as it “by far” the smallest improve he’s obtained.
On the similar assembly, the board unanimously accepted a decision that formally prohibited race from being thought of in any “aspects of student, academic, and campus life” and eradicated diversity-related applications and trainings, together with the Entry to Analysis and Inclusive Excellence (ARIE) program that emerged out of Washington’s anti-racism activity pressure.
Most of the challenged insurance policies and applications, together with the usage of range statements in hiring and promotion supplies, had already been terminated, as college leaders informed the board at a packed assembly on Might 1.
The GMU chapter of the American Affiliation of College Professors (AAUP), a labor union for college members, blasted the Training Division’s investigation as a “gross misuse of federal enforcement authority” that ignores the precise historical past and context of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was a response to a long time of segregation that denied Black People specifically entry to jobs, schooling, companies and public companies.
“Efforts to fight discrimination and strengthen inclusivity are not violations of civil rights — they are the very fulfillment of our obligations under civil rights law and the principles of equal opportunity,” the chapter’s govt committee mentioned in an announcement. “The OCR’s findings distort both the spirit and the letter of Title VI, weaponizing it against the very goals it was enacted to achieve.”
The committee urged the Board of Guests “to resist the Trump administration’s pressure campaign,” including that they had been “especially appalled” by the Training Division’s demand for an apology from Washington.
“We call on the University’s Board of Visitors, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and the wider community to stand firm in defending George Mason’s values,” GMU-AAUP mentioned. “We urge the University to contest this baseless determination rather than submit to coercive remedies that would erode academic freedom, weaken shared governance, and undermine the integrity of our institution.”
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