George Mason latest school to consider ending DEI programs at Trump’s behest

The George Mason University Board of Visitors is late to the game in complying in advance with Donald Trump on DEI, but the visitors are playing catch-up.

A BOV committee will consider at a meeting on Thursday the approval of a resolution that calls for the elimination of DEI programs not “explicitly required by law,” including the school’s Bias Incident Response Team and the Access to Research and Inclusive Excellence initiative.

The ARIE initiative was launched by Gregory Washington, the university’s first Black president, in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder.

The George Mason University chapter of the American Association of University Professors argues that such programs are essential, not optional, for redressing racial and other forms of discrimination, fostering an inclusive academic environment, attracting and retaining diverse talent, and ensuring the university complies with its own commitments to nondiscrimination.

In a letter addressed to the BOV, the GMU-AAUP expressed “profound alarm and unequivocal opposition,” asserting that the resolution represents a politically motivated attempt to dismantle the university’s DEI infrastructure under the guise of legal compliance.

“This resolution is not a good-faith effort to ensure legal compliance,” said Dr. Bethany Letiecq, a professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Mason and president of the GMU-AAUP. “It is a politically motivated attack on the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion that are fundamental to the mission and success of George Mason University.”

“Let us not forget that DEI initiatives were instituted to redress systemic anti-Black racism and other forms of bigotry and discrimination,” Letiecq said. “We know those societal challenges still exist and thus question the true intent of the Board’s desire to dismantle the DEI infrastructure here.”

The BOVs at the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech have already capitulated on Trump’s directives on DEI without a fight.

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ICYMI

• Virginia Tech board ignores opposition, bends the knee on future of DEI programs
• Virginia Community College System, at behest of Trump, Miyares, kills DEI initiatives
• AAUP urges UVA to ‘immediately reverse course’ on move to kill DEI programs

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The boards all have MAGA supermajorities of appointees installed by Glenn Youngkin, who ran as a Maybe, Maybe Not Trumper in 2021, and has since seen the light to cast himself as a red-meat guy, because he wants to have something to do in politics after his one term as governor ends early next year.

The composition of these boards is likely to change, quickly, once Youngkin is gone, with Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, the heavy favorite to be his successor.

Assuming Republicans don’t outright steal the election, which is possible, Spanberger will be governor, and it’s expected that she’ll use her gubernatorial powers to rechristen the boards with Democrat majorities.

If she’s thinking of playing nice at all, I’ll be here to shame her into action.

In the meantime, we have the MAGAs trying to play politics with people’s lives again, this time at Mason.

“This is not about legal adherence; it is a radical and ideologically driven power grab,” Letiecq said. “The Board is abdicating its fiduciary responsibility and engaging in partisan political maneuvering at the behest of the Governor that undermines our core mission.”