The Trump administration turned up the heat Friday on George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public school, accusing its president of unlawfully promoting diversity in hiring and promotions.
The Education Department notified George Mason that a federal civil rights investigation had found the university had acted unlawfully. It demanded a public apology from the president, Gregory Washington, as well as other corrective actions, within 10 days.
The move comes as George Mason, known as one of the most diverse campuses in the country, is also under investigation by the Justice Department for policies that focused on promoting diversity in hiring, as well as for not doing enough to combat antisemitism. In addition to those two Justice Department investigations, another Education Department investigation of the campus, on antisemitism, is pending.
Dr. Washington, the first Black president of the university, was hired in 2020 from the University of California, Irvine. There, he served as dean of the engineering school and was known for promoting diversity initiatives.
He took office at George Mason, which is in the suburbs of Washington, around the same time the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining force across the country. Dr. Washington started an antiracism task force and began working to hire more diverse faculty members.
In a news release Friday, the Education Department said it had found that Dr. Washington and his leadership team had given preferential treatment to new hires and existing faculty from “underrepresented” groups to advance an agenda of “antiracism,” which it said was unlawful. In some cases, the agency said, the university’s leadership had reserved the right to waive competitive hiring processes to advance its goal of building a more diverse faculty.
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The post Trump Officials Demand Apology From George Mason President Over Diversity appeared first on New York Times.
