\n<\/p>\n
House Republicans have accused George Mason University president Gregory Washington of lying to Congress about diversity practices at his institution, ratcheting up pressure on the president to step down.<\/p>\n
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee alleged in a report released Thursday night that Washington made \u201cmultiple false statements to Congress\u201d in testimony about diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at GMU. The public university has been under fire for months over allegedly illegal DEI practices as the Trump administration has sought to crack down on such initiatives, claiming they are discriminatory and violate federal civil rights law. The Judiciary Committee report also alleged that the university \u201clikely violated federal civil rights law by discriminating based on race in its hiring practices to advance Dr. Washington\u2019s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Washington has denied breaking the law through efforts to diversify GMU\u2019s faculty and staff, telling Congress that the university did not practice illegal discrimination under his leadership.<\/p>\n
The report is the latest salvo from Republicans, who have launched federal investigations into GMU over its hiring policies, including demands that the embattled president apologize for allegedly discriminatory practices, which he has refused to do as he denies any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
The House Judiciary Committee\u2019s report zoomed in on an effort by GMU, launched shortly after Washington took office in July 2020, to diversify employee ranks. The Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative the president introduced aimed to make faculty and staff \u201cmirror student demographics\u201d at GMU, which is among the most diverse institutions in the country. As part of that effort, GMU tasked schools and departments with hiring more underrepresented individuals.<\/p>\n
But in congressional testimony, Washington denied the initiative was a strict mandate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are overall goals and they\u2019re aspirational in focus,\u201d Washington said, according to a transcript of his Sept.\u00a017 interview released by the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.<\/p>\n
Though the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative stemmed from his office, Washington told Congress that faculty in each department developed plans for their units. He also cast the creation of such plans as optional, telling Congress, \u201cIf units did not want to develop a plan, they did not have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the House Judiciary Committee claimed Washington lied about that.<\/p>\n
\u201cDocuments and testimony obtained by the Committee\u00a0\u2026 show that Dr. Washington and his deputies actively sought to punish schools that did not comply with his racial discrimination mandates,\u201d the committee report states. \u201cA senior GMU official told the Committee that GMU financially punished any school that resisted Dr. Washington\u2019s unconstitutional initiative.\u201d <\/p>\n
Congress pointed to testimony from Ken Randall, the dean of George Mason University\u2019s Antonin Scalia Law School, as evidence that Washington lied about the plan being optional.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d get fired if you didn\u2019t have a plan,\u201d Randall said, according to an interview transcript.<\/p>\n
Washington also denied the administration formally reviewed plans to diversify faculty hiring. Republicans accused him of lying about that, too, pointing to internal remarks from then\u2013vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion Sharnnia Artis (who now has a different title), in which she said the DEI team \u201cconsistently reviewed, monitored, and supported\u201d such plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, the evidence contradicts Dr. Washington\u2019s testimony,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
However, Douglas Gansler, a lawyer representing the GMU president, sharply disrupted claims that his client lied to Congress, which he accused of carrying out a \u201cpolitical lynching\u201d in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe political theater of the politicians accusing Dr. Washington of misrepresenting anything to them is unadulterated nonsense. Dr. Washington has never discriminated against anybody for any reason and did not utter one syllable of anything not verifiably completely true,\u201d Gansler wrote.<\/p>\n The GMU Board of Visitors has said little in the immediate aftermath of the report.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, the Board of Visitors received an interim staff report from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. We are reviewing the report and consulting with University counsel and counsel for Dr. Washington,\u201d board members wrote in a brief statement. \u201cThe Board remains focused on serving our students, faculty and the Commonwealth, ensuring full compliance with federal law and positioning GMU for continued excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n While the board is reviewing the report, it appears unlikely members would be able to take action against Washington. GMU\u2019s board, which is stocked with GOP donors and political figures appointed by Republican governor Glenn Youngkin, is currently without a quorum after Virginia Democrats blocked multiple appointments in recent months. Now a legal battle over those blocked appointments is slowly winding its way through the judicial system. While the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in the case last month, it has yet to issue a ruling on the matter. In the meantime, with only six of its\u00a016 seats filled, GMU\u2019s board is hobbled.<\/p>\n Youngkin\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed<\/em>.<\/p>\n The George Mason chapter of the American Association of University Professors offered a fiery defense of Washington, arguing in a statement the committee was carrying out a politically motivated attack designed to erode institutional autonomy and impose partisan control over the public university.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Committee\u2019s unfounded accusations, dependence on clearly compromised sources, and selective presentation of \u2018evidence\u2019 represent an unprecedented abuse of congressional power\u2014designed not to find the truth, but to silence leadership that refuses to yield to political pressure,\u201d the GMU AAUP chapter wrote in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed<\/em>.<\/p>\n GMU students, employees and community members rallied in support of President Gregory Washington earlier this year, amid concerns the board would fire him.<\/p>\n With Washington under pressure from Congress, state and national Democrats have rallied to his defense, accusing the GOP of waging an ideological war on universities and of hypocrisy by focusing on the GMU president\u2019s alleged dishonesty while federal officials brazenly lie in court.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Donald Trump\u2019s Gangster State, they pick the target first and figure out the charges later,\u201d House Judiciary Democrats wrote on X. \u201cToday\u2019s target: GMU President Gregory Washington. The Trump Education Department failed to find evidence of employment discrimination at GMU. So [House Judiciary committee] Chairman [Jim] Jordan opened his own investigation. When that one only confirmed Dr. Washington followed Virginia law, Jordan pivoted and conjured up an absurd and convoluted criminal referral based on an alleged lie that takes 8 pages to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n Representative James Walkinshaw\u2014a Democrat representing Virginia\u2019s 11th district, which includes GMU\u2014called Washington \u201can exemplary leader\u201d in a biting statement posted on Bluesky.<\/p>\n \u201cMake no mistake, this is an attack on free speech and academic freedom,\u201d Walkinshaw wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s cancel culture at its worst and the American people are tired of right-wing snowflakes like Jim Jordan trying to silence anyone who doesn\u2019t bend the knee to their bizarre MAGA ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" House Republicans have accused George Mason University president Gregory Washington of lying to Congress about diversity practices at his institution, ratcheting up pressure on the president to step down. The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee alleged in a report released Thursday night that Washington made \u201cmultiple false statements to Congress\u201d in testimony about diversity, equity and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[6536,4579,2274,704,7294,4560,1059],"class_list":{"0":"post-32661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-accuses","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-dei","11":"tag-efforts","12":"tag-gmu","13":"tag-lying","14":"tag-president"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32661","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=32661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Happens Next <\/h2>\n