\n<\/p>\n
The Virginia university has been under investigation since early July.<\/p>\n
John M. Chase\/iStock Unreleased\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Gregory Washington, president of Virginia\u2019s George Mason University, must apologize to the university community for \u201cpromoting unlawful discriminatory practices\u201d in order to resolve allegations that the institution violated civil rights law, the Department of Education announced Friday.<\/p>\n
The department claims that the university has illegally factored race and \u201cother immutable characteristics\u201d into hiring, promotion and tenure practices since at least 2020.<\/p>\n
Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said the unlawful practices began shortly after the murder of George Floyd, when Washington called on faculty and administrators to expunge campus of \u201cracist vestiges\u201d by \u201cintentionally discriminat[ing] on the basis of race.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t make this up,\u201d Trainor said in the statement. \u201cDespite this unfortunate chapter in Mason\u2019s history, the university now has the opportunity to come into compliance with federal civil rights laws by entering into a Resolution Agreement with the Office for Civil Rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Education Department first announced in early July that it would investigate GMU for potentially violating Title\u00a0VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race and national origin. Later that month, the Department of Justice announced it would investigate the institution\u2019s Faculty Senate after the panel passed a resolution in support of Washington, who had been quick to push back on the Trump administration and defend the university\u2019s commitment to addressing social injustice. Many conservatives called for Washington\u2014the institution\u2019s first Black president\u2014to be fired. But the university\u2019s Board of Visitors spared him at a meeting Aug.\u00a01, at least for now, and gave him a raise.<\/p>\n
Trainor said in the statement that \u201cthe Trump-McMahon Department of Education will not allow racially exclusionary practices\u2014which violate the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Protection Clause, and Supreme Court precedent\u2014to continue corrupting our nation\u2019s educational institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to an apology, the Education Department is demanding that GMU post that statement \u201cprominently\u201d to the university\u2019s website, remove any contrary statements from the past and revise campus policies to prevent future race-based programming. It also wants the institution to begin an annual training session for all individuals involved in recruitment, hiring, promotion or tenure decisions to emphasize the ban on racial consideration and provide records documenting compliance whenever they are requested moving forward.<\/p>\n
George Mason officials have 10 days to respond to the department\u2019s proposed resolution agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Virginia university has been under investigation since early July. John M. Chase\/iStock Unreleased\/Getty Images Gregory Washington, president of Virginia\u2019s George Mason University, must apologize to the university community for \u201cpromoting unlawful discriminatory practices\u201d in order to resolve allegations that the institution violated civil rights law, the Department of Education announced Friday. The department claims<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2346,280,1072,175,3592,702,7829],"class_list":{"0":"post-17281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-civil","9":"tag-dept","10":"tag-george","11":"tag-law","12":"tag-mason","13":"tag-rights","14":"tag-violated"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}