GMU Faculty Senate targeted in DOJ letter

The head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division sent a letter Friday requesting that George Mason University’s rector provide “all written communications” regarding a resolution its faculty senate passed last week in support of President Gregory Washington.

Dated July 25, the letter signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon says that the department was informed of the resolution commending “Washington’s efforts to ensure ‘faculty and staff demographics … mirror student demographics’ at GMU,” according to her letter. George Mason is Virginia’s largest public university and its most racially and ethnically diverse, with 39,763 students enrolled in fall 2024, and 66.3% of all students are listed as nonwhite.

“This statement is concerning as it indicates the GMU Faculty Senate is praising President Washington for engaging in race- or sex-motivated hiring decisions to achieve specific demographic outcomes among faculty and staff,” Dhillon writes. “According to Justice [Ketanji Brown] Jackson and all eight of her colleagues on the United States Supreme Court, such hiring practices violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.”

Dhillon cites multiple legal cases in the letter, including the 2023 Harvard case that eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn affirmative action in college admissions.

Dhillon writes that although her division intends to submit a “detailed information request” this week, the DOJ would like to review the faculty senate resolution, as well as any drafts and “all written communications,” including emails, texts, voice mails and other forms of electronic communications, between members of the faculty senate, or between the president and his office staff and faculty senate members.

“Please immediately take the necessary steps to preserve all such documents and to notify both the members of the faculty senate and President Washington’s office of the obligation to preserve these documents and electronic communications,” Dhillon concludes. A Department of Justice spokesperson said it had no comment beyond the letter Monday.

Dhillon opened two investigations into the university in July, in addition to two probes launched by the U.S. Department of Education since July 1. The letter, which has not yet been made public by the DOJ, is the first apparent federal inquiry about GMU faculty members’ resolution to support Washington, whose actions to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion at the university have been criticized by the Trump administration and conservative members of George Mason’s board of visitors.

Multiple groups, including federal and state Democratic lawmakers, George Mason’s American Association of University Professors chapter and regional business organizations, have taken measures to support Washington, the university’s first Black president and its leader since July 2020. Some say that the Trump administration is using the DOJ and the DOE to drive out Washington, and that George Mason’s board of visitors, which has firing power over the university’s president, has not done enough to support him.

The DOJ’s July 25 letter, like others regarding the university, was addressed to Rector Charles “Cully” Stimson and Mike Fragoso, a Torridon Law attorney hired to represent the university in the DOJ matters. Stimson and Fragoso did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter Monday.

Professor Solon Simmons, president of the George Mason Faculty Senate, said Monday that he has seen the letter and has been advised by multiple people that he should hire an attorney. He said in a written statement that Dhillon’s letter is “inaccurate.”

The faculty senate “did not commend President Gregory Washington’s efforts to ensure ‘faculty and staff demographics . . . mirror student demographics’ at GMU. The language we used is simply a direct quote from page 31 of a five-year strategic document adopted by the board of visitors,” Simmons wrote. “An outcome the board committed to was to, ‘faculty and staff demographics that mirror student demographics.’ It is not our language; it is theirs.”

The five-year strategic document was released in 2023 after the board approved it in December 2022. It lists goals for the university that include expanding opportunities for students, integrating “inclusive principles and practices,” and expanding research at George Mason. In a section titled, “Exemplify a university culture of access and inclusion,” the university includes “faculty and staff demographics that mirror student demographics” under outcomes it aims to achieve.

The faculty senate resolution, which was approved July 24, refers to the four federal investigations launched since July 1, declares its confidence in Washington’s leadership and calls for the board of visitors to “affirm its commitment to a fair, independent, transparent and comprehensive annual review” of Washington’s job performance.

The resolution also calls for the board to “provide the strongest defense possible of President Washington and the university’s leadership during these investigations” and to “not give in to political pressures to issue penalties before due process and proper investigations have been completed.”

On Aug. 1, the board is set to discuss in closed session Washington’s work performance, according to its agenda released last Friday. Meanwhile, this week a Fairfax County judge is set to rule on a requested injunction motion filed by nine state Senate Democrats that would prevent the boards of George Mason, the University of Virginia and Virginia Military Institute from seating eight gubernatorial appointees who were rejected by a Senate committee in June.