July 18 (UPI) — The Justice Department has launched a new investigation into George Mason University, over alleged illegal hiring practices, making it the third federal probe the Trump administration has opened into the school this month.
Federal prosecutors informed George Mason of the civil rights investigation in a letter dated Thursday, stating the probe stems from diversity goal policies that make race and sex factors in faculty hiring.
The letter states the Department of Justice is in possession of emails from 2020 in which the school’s president, Gregory Washington, states he intends to develop a renewal, promotion and tenure process to benefit faculty of color and professional women.
It also mentions a November 2020 recorded discussion in which Washington states he will advance an anti-racism agenda while perceiving anti-racism as a verb, meaning “conscious efforts and actions to provide equitable opportunities.”
It also points to a June 2022 post on Twitter, now called X, in which Washington celebrated a university employee who “helped incorporate” diversity, equity, and inclusion in their curriculum and hiring process.
“It is unlawful and un-American to deny equal access to employment opportunities on the basis of race and sex,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.
“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.”
Diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI, is a conceptual framework that promotes fair treatment and full participation of all people, and it has been a target of conservatives over the last few years who claim it is racist against White individuals.
The Trump administration has sought to remove DEI from the federal government through executive orders and has threatened to revoke federal funding from several universities, including Harvard, over their alleged DEI programs.
The investigation announced Thursday is the third launched this month into George Mason University.
On July 10, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the school for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin in programs and activities that receive federal funding.
It said the investigation stems from a complaint filed with the civil rights office of the Justice Department by “multiple professors” at the school who allege it uses race and other characteristics in policies, including hiring and promotion.
It similarly pointed to the same examples cited by the Justice Department.
“This kind of pernicious and widespread discrimination — packaged as ‘anti-racism’ — was allowed to flourish under the Biden administration, but it will not be tolerated by this one,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement.
George Mason refutes the accusations.
“No academic units mandate outcomes based on race, color national origin, sex or any other characteristic protected by law,” Washington said in a statement.
“There are no mechanisms in Mason’s promotion and tenure policies that give preferential treatment based on race, color, national origin, sex or any other characteristic protected by law.”
He said Title VI was enacted to dismantle explicit and systemic racial discrimination that denied access to education, employment, housing and public services.
However, he said they are now seeing “a profound shift” in how it is being applied.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
Earlier this month, the Department of Education launched an investigation into George Mason University over allegations it failed to respond effectively to a “pervasively hostile environment for Jewish students and faculty” during pro-Palestine protests that erupted in schools against Israel’s war in Gaza.
