George Mason University faces federal probe into hiring and promotion practices

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday opened an investigation into George Mason University to determine whether it discriminates against employees based on sex and race, including in promotion and tenure decisions.

The news comes after the U.S. Department of Education opened two investigations into the public institution earlier this month over claims the university hasn’t done enough to respond to antisemitism and illegally uses race in employment decisions.

The flurry of federal inquiries raises questions regarding the future of George Mason’s president, after pressure from the Justice Department pushed former University of Virginia President Jim Ryan to announce his abrupt resignation in June.

3 probes in 3 weeks

In a Thursday letter to George Mason, DOJ alleged that “race and sex have been motivating factors in faculty hiring decisions to achieve ‘diversity’ goals” under President Gregory Washington’s tenure. The agency cited Biden administration-era emails and statements from Washington in which he discussed a desire to support diversity and faculty of color and oppose racism on an institutional level.

The DOJ’s letter opens an investigation into whether the university has violated Title VII, which bars employers from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. 

“When employers screen out qualified candidates from the hiring process, they not only erode trust in our public institutions — they violate the law, and the Justice Department will investigate accordingly,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of DOJ’s civil rights division, said in a statement.

The agency said it has “not reached any conclusions” yet and called on the university to provide relevant information.

George Mason did not immediately respond to a Friday request for comment on DOJ’s investigation.

“Painted as discriminatory”

On Wednesday, Washington strongly repudiated similar allegations from the Education Department. The agency is investigating the university’s faculty hiring practices over potential violations of Title VI, which bars federally funded institutions from discriminating based on race, color or national origin.

“Our diversity efforts are designed to expand opportunity and build inclusive excellence — not to exclude or advantage any group unlawfully,” he said in a statement July 16.

The university’s faculty performance evaluations do not “use race or anti-racism measures as determinants of institutional success,” Washington said, and George Mason’s promotion and tenure policies do not give preferential treatment based on protected characteristics.

The university president said that all inclusivity work done by a task force at George Mason aligned with the One Virginia Plan, a state-level initiative promoting diversity and inclusion in the state government’s workforce.

The plan, established during former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration, is set to conclude at the end of 2025 and is unlikely to be extended by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a vehement opponent of diversity and inclusion efforts.

Washington, the first Black president to lead George Mason, also commented on “the “profound shift in how Title VI is being applied,” in what he called “a stark departure from the spirit in which civil rights law was written.”

“Longstanding efforts to address inequality — such as mentoring programs, inclusive hiring practices, and support for historically underrepresented groups — are in many cases being reinterpreted as presumptively unlawful,” Washington said. “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.”

The Education Department never publicly announced its first investigation into George Mason, which alleges that the university failed to respond “effectively to a pervasive hostile environment for Jewish students and faculty.” George Mason confirmed the investigation on July 3, though a conservative news outlet began publishing government documents about the case the day before.

Washington predicted many of the obstacles George Mason has faced this month in an interview with ProPublica and The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Colleges targeted by the Trump administration have been subject to rapid-fire federal investigations, which have then consistently been leaked to conservative publications, he said, the day before the Education Department notified his university of its second investigation.

“It seems like this is orchestrated,” Washington said. “The same people who are kind of aligned that got rid of Jim Ryan are aligned against me.”

Déjà vu in Virginia higher ed

At UVA, Ryan stepped down last month amid a DOJ investigation into the university’s diversity work.

He took office in 2018 — a year after white supremacists held the Unite the Right rally on UVA’s campus — and implemented an array of diversity initiatives during his tenure.

Ryan announced he would resign at the end of the academic year rather than attempting to “fight the federal government in order to save my own job.” 

“To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld,” he said in his announcement, touching on many of the Trump administration’s methods for attempting to bring colleges to heel.