Targeted by Trump, George Mason president fears “orchestrated” campaign

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox When the Tuition Department s Office for Civil Rights notified George Mason University on July that it was opening an antisemitism inquiry based on a up-to-date complaint the university s president Gregory Washington mentioned he was perplexed Compared with other campuses where protesters had ransacked buildings and hunkered down in encampments George Mason had been relatively quiet over the past year he stated His administration had taken extensive strategies to improve relations with the Jewish society had enacted strict rules on protests and had communicated all of that to the OCR during a previous antisemitism probe that remained open By the next day though there were signs that the new examination was part of a coordinated campaign to oust him One piece of evidence the speed with which conservative news outlets released on the OCR s action which hadn t been publicly revealed The OCR letter was embedded in a July article published by a right-wing news outlet The Washington Free Beacon The next day the City Journal published by the influential and conservative Manhattan Institute ran an opinion essay headlined George Mason University s Disastrous President The article accused Washington the university s first Black president and a first-generation college graduate of backing racially discriminatory DEI programs referring to diversity equity and inclusion efforts and failing to address campus antisemitism It concluded that Washington s track record warrants his resignation or dismissal The similarities to contemporary events at another citizens university in Virginia were hard to ignore The OCR s George Mason inquiry was opened just four days after the University of Virginia s president James E Ryan broadcasted that he was resigning to help settle a federal probe into the university s DEI commitments That happened after a group of conservative University of Virginia alumni the Jefferson Council published blog entries and newspaper ads decrying the president in part for focusing too heavily on diversity efforts and demanding that he resign The council s connections to board members and Justice Department lawyers led plenty of observers in higher learning to conclude that Ryan s forced resignation was the development of a coordinated assault Now Washington is feeling the same heat coming from similar sources The temperature cranked up several degrees Thursday morning when the Teaching Department notified George Mason that it s opening a second research this one alleging the university illegally considers race in hiring and promoting employees The department announced it was acting on complaints from multiple professors at GMU In a press declaration Thursday Craig Trainor the Coaching Department s acting assistant secretary for civil rights suggested that the agency has already reached sweeping conclusions about the university s hiring practices Despite the leadership of George Mason University claiming that it does not discriminate on the basis of race it appears that its hiring and promotion policies and practices from to the present implemented under the guise of so-called Diversity Equity and Inclusion not only allow but champion illegal racial preferencing in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of This kind of pernicious and wide-spread discrimination packaged as anti-racism was allowed to flourish under the Biden Administration but it will not be tolerated by this one he wrote The university rebutted those accusations in a message saying it is complying with all federal and state mandates and does not discriminate The university received a new Department of Training letter of research this morning as it was simultaneously distributed to news outlets which is unprecedented in our experience the declaration declared As inevitably we will work in good faith to give a full and prompt response Meanwhile dozens of Jewish faculty members at GMU have signed on to a declaration condemning an attack on our university region and our GMU President that is promptly intensifying under a false racially divisive and deeply cynical claim of combating antisemitism Even before Thursday s announcement Washington stated he had detected a pattern that s been playing out at other universities targeted by President Donald Trump s administration Multiple investigations are filed in quick succession and word leaks to news organizations It seems like this is orchestrated Washington explained during an interview Wednesday The same people who are kind of aligned that got rid of Jim Ryan are aligned against me He finds the timing of the attacks against him and his university troubling Given that the Office for Civil Rights doesn t publicly announce who is under inspection we were wondering how these conservative outlets even got the information in the first place Washington revealed The almost hateful discussions of me in the City Journal article looked like a concerted effort to try to paint the institution in a negative light Washington revealed the piece seemed to be urging the Trump administration to take the research to the next level the Department of Justice which could levy punishments against the university Plenty of faculty members at George Mason agree They worry that despite the OCR s insistence in its letter to the university that its scrutiny will be unbiased the Trump administration has already reached a verdict on the institution s president and wants him out As evidence they point to a web of ties between right-wing news organizations and politicians including Virginia s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin as well as several George Mason board members The same unfounded and coordinated attacks that pushed Ryan out of UVa are now being leveled at GMU President Greg Washington the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors wrote in an online post We think the DOJ Governor Youngkin and Youngkin s appointees to GMU s governing board are trying to force President Washington out so they can hire 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 those warnings publishing an opinion piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch saying that the Trump administration appears to be eyeing its next target with George Mason s president The accusations which are pushed by bloggers with ties to ultra-conservative groups with histories of false maintains about Mason and advocacy for the removal of university presidents are eerily similar to those lodged against Ryan they wrote They include vague and politically charged accusations centered around DEI and suggestions that the university s administration has been insufficiently responsive to concerns raised by Jewish students about their safety on campus That s despite the fact that the university s leaders have repeatedly and publicly condemned antisemitism and indeed been praised by the local Jewish Relations Council and campus Hillel for their leadership and commitment to Jewish members of Mason s locality The schooling department s July letter notified George Mason that it was scrutinizing a complaint filed in June that Jewish students and faculty members faced a hostile atmosphere at the Virginia university between October and the end of the - academic year It gave the university until July to turn over voluminous information about its response to antisemitism complaints It also assured the university it would take a neutral stance in evaluating the information Warner and Kaine are skeptical that the research will be fair and impartial In their opinion piece they disclosed it s more likely to serve as yet another smokescreen to punish universities and leaders who don t align with their ideological goals Various George Mason faculty members share these concerns When you start seeing these hit pieces come out one after another in a matter of days you know it s coordinated Bethany L Letiecq a professor in the College of Instruction and Human Advancement disclosed in an interview Indeed higher training leaders have accused the Department of Justice s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism which officially oversees investigations by several federal agencies of ignoring procedures intended to provide due process racing toward predetermined results and then punishing universities by stripping them of billions of research dollars Washington s critics have ties to right-wing advocates of eliminating diversity efforts and other examples of what they see as higher schooling s woke policies The author of the essay calling Washington a disastrous president Ian Kingsbury has co-published articles promoting conservative causes with Jay P Greene a senior research fellow with The Heritage Foundation Christopher F Rufo one of the nation s largest part aggressive and influential opponents of diversity equity and inclusion initiatives is among the contributing editors at City Journal Such critics are well represented in George Mason s leadership as well Youngkin the governor appointed most of of GMU s governing board known as the board of visitors The university s general counsel Anne Gentry is married to a longtime conservative activist and executive with the Koch Foundation Letiecq pointed out At Mason the foxes are in the henhouse she disclosed It s an inside job Letiecq worries that Youngkin might exert the same kind of influence that Florida Gov Ron DeSantis a fellow Republican has in trying to reshape higher schooling to fit a conservative playbook Neither Youngkin nor the board of visitors forthwith responded to requests for comment I have suspected that Youngkin in his quest for political capital has been following the DeSantis playbook and sees Mason as a possible New College that they can take over and take down she commented New College of Florida once a progressive institution underwent substantial changes to its curriculum and staff beginning in when DeSantis stacked its board with conservative members Neither Kingsbury the author of the City Journal piece nor the Department of Mentoring responded to inquiries about the patterns Washington saw Eliana Johnson editor of the Washington Free Beacon stated in a message that our reporting speaks for itself City Journal did not respond to requests for comment Washington defended his record in a inhabitants message on July As we prepare a response to the complaint it is fundamental that we all have an accurate understanding of how safe and welcoming the George Mason locality is particularly as we prepare to welcome tens of thousands of students to campus in just a limited short weeks he wrote George Mason has not been marred by the sort of violence that has rocked so countless other campuses elsewhere in Virginia and around the nation following the Hamas attacks of It is a distinction we are proud of and work hard each day to maintain In messages that were sent to the campus district detailing the university s responses to the Hamas attacks and that were shared with The Chronicle of Higher Tuition his office denounced craven acts of terrorism as we have seen in Israel urged civil discourse understanding and peaceable assembly on campus and denounced the disgusting behavior of those who were attempting to distribute antisemitic leaflets University leaders coordinated with law enforcement to respond to two violent antisemitic actions It s been more than a year since the last campus demonstration related to Gaza Washington revealed That protest remained safe and legal and did not disrupt university business No encampments have ever formed at George Mason and we will not permit them in the future Washington noted The university was one of the first to introduce a comprehensive safety and well-being plan which remains in effect Our material continues to show that our ecosystem has dramatically improved since the horrific Hamas attacks of so we are perplexed to be receiving this review at this time Nevertheless we will respond in a forthright direct and timely manner to this and any inquiry In the - academic year the university received bias-incident reports based on antisemitism according to Rose Pascarell vice president for university life Last year that number dropped to Plus she announced the university responded fully to a previous OCR complaint related to antisemitism but never heard back from the authorities Letiecq noted 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 This is an insatiable campaign on the right and it seems there s nothing you can do to satisfy them she declared George Mason with more than students is the majority racially diverse citizens research university in the state university officers say To comply with Trump s executive orders the university has repurposed its DEI office to focus on compliance and group It has cut six positions eliminated diversity training and expanded a campaign in constructive dialogue All of those changes are outlined in a lengthy review to the board Washington insists though that the university won t abandon its commitments to the underlying principles its diversity efforts backing When you are a diverse institution you have to operate from that diverse framework Washington declared I don t run away from that I run toward it DEI expenditures represent of the university s budget GMU leaders say Solicited why he agreed to speak out publicly when so a multitude of presidents have stayed silent to avoid angering the administration Washington noted the attacks were too personal to avoid My philosophy is Sunlight is disinfectant We re going to be transparent with the society throughout the process including the back-and-forth with OCR he revealed Washington says if the university is required to make essential changes without a standard inspection and discussion of the facts it will deal with that as necessary We will work in good faith to move through this Washington explained We will know if we re given due process by how they manage our particular episode Katherine Mangan is a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Coaching The post Targeted by Trump George Mason president fears orchestrated campaign appeared first on Salon com