Many professors at George Mason University had feared that their embattled president, under intense pressure from the Trump administration, could lose his job on Friday, as the school’s board members met to discuss his performance.
He appears to be safe, for now.
The president, Gregory Washington, has been under attack by Republicans for supporting diversity efforts at George Mason, Virginia’s largest state university. The federal government opened several investigations over the last month to examine the university’s approach to diversity and its response to antisemitism.
At a closed-door meeting that lasted more than three hours on Friday, a board packed with conservative appointees of the state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, had convened to discuss the president’s fate. They emerged without making any moves to remove the president for the moment.
But the scrutiny of Dr. Washington and the university has outraged many faculty. Some professors and students stood outside in the rain, after the boardroom and two overflow rooms holding 90 people each filled up. Several held signs that read “Hands Off GMU.”
Recently, the state’s public university boards have forced the departures of Jim Ryan, the president of the University of Virginia, and Cedric T. Wins, the superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, a public military college. Both men had come under fire from Republicans for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion programs at their schools.
Though the board did not take action on Dr. Washington’s job, during the open-door session, its members passed a resolution that supported a “merit-based approach” to student success and faculty and staff hiring, ordered cooperation with the federal government’s investigations, and prohibited requiring diversity statements in hiring.
During the meeting, Dr. Washington did not discuss the campus’s diversity efforts. He focused his remarks on the business of the university, like raising money and how the campus is integrating artificial intelligence into its operations. Board members also did not address the controversy over his leadership in the open session.
Dr. Washington’s critics have pointed to his years-old efforts to emphasize diversity, at a time when it was a priority for a broad swath of universities and other American institutions. In a letter to Dr. Washington on Tuesday, Representative Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, pointed to Dr. Washington’s past plans to “advance systemic and cultural anti-racism” and to create a task force on “anti-racism and inclusive excellence.”
George Mason and its president are something of an odd target, however.
The university is a vibrant center of conservative thought. It is home to the Antonin Scalia Law School, named after the Supreme Court justice who was a staunch conservative. It has also promoted its intellectual diversity, a conservative priority. Unlike the elite institutions that the Trump administration has typically targeted, like Harvard University, George Mason is the type of accessible and affordable college that has usually received broad political support.
Its campus protests over the war in Gaza have also been muted. The school did not have a pro-Palestinian encampment during the height of campus demonstrations last year, for example.
Dr. Washington’s messages about anti-racism went out to the campus in 2020, shortly after George Floyd, a Black man, died under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis, prompting a moment of heightened racial sensitivity across American institutions.
As tensions rise within his own board, Dr. Washington has found himself increasingly isolated.
Four inquiries, from the Education and Justice Departments, are probing the campus’s response to antisemitism and racial diversity efforts. Republican members of Congress have demanded documents related to diversity and asked that the president schedule an interview with the House Judiciary Committee by Aug. 12.
They cited “a pervasive culture of intolerance at George Mason that violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Civil Rights Act.”
In a July 16 message to the campus, Dr. Washington made it clear that he had a different understanding of the Civil Rights Act, which was passed in 1964 to combat racial discrimination. The Trump administration’s application of civil rights law represents a “profound shift,” Dr. Washington said.
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
It is unclear how much support Dr. Washington has on the board. One member, Michael Meese, the son of Edwin Meese, Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, sent a message to fellow members on July 10 warning them not to be “played” by outside forces trying to divide the university.
The university ended an effort to roll out diversity courses in the core curriculum and scaled back administrative positions, he said. “Claims that George Mason has not reformed its approach are simply false,” he wrote.
Unlike many university leaders targeted by the Trump administration, Dr. Washington has provided a spirited defense of his efforts in the press, until the board restricted his ability to speak with journalists about the investigations. Now, all inquiries must go through an outside law firm with strong ties to Mr. Trump.
Last week, professors came to Dr. Washington’s defense with a faculty senate resolution. The next day, Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s civil rights chief, said in a letter that the government would be investigating the group.
Virginia’s experience is similar to Republican efforts to overhaul higher education elsewhere in the country. While the Trump administration has unleashed an unprecedented attack on universities, targeting top institutions with major funding threats, the turmoil in Virginia’s universities has been largely driven at the state level.
The same has been true in states like Texas, where Republicans have also sought to reverse diversity initiatives, and especially Florida, where Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, had crafted his political identity around attacking educational institutions.
“Florida has been the standout, until now,” said James H. Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of public policy who has studied university governance. “Virginia is becoming the new Florida.”
Vimal Patel writes about higher education for The Times with a focus on speech and campus culture.
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