Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
Several professors at George Mason University (GMU) filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Civil Rights alleging that the school hires and promotes faulty under a “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policy.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January banning race- and sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. The administration has opened multiple investigations into schools that are continuing to violate the executive order and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The department announced last week that it has opened a civil rights investigation into George Mason. An excerpt (emphasis added):
This alleged conduct creates a racially hostile environment and is prohibited under Title VI and its implementing regulation at 34 CFR § 100.3(C), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in the employment practices of educational institutions that receive federal funds.
According to the ED, leadership at GMU began discriminating against individuals based on immutable characteristics in 2020 (at least explicitly), which you’ll remember was the year of so-called racial reckoning during the George Floyd riots.
To provide cover for continuing to violate federal law, Gregory Washington, GMU president, sent an email in March notifying staff that the DEI office was renamed the “Office of Access, Compliance, and Community.”
Washington wrote that GMU was complying with existing civil rights laws. But those laws bar racial discrimination.
“This kind of pernicious and wide-spread discrimination—packaged as ‘anti-racism’—was allowed to flourish under the Biden Administration, but it will not be tolerated by this one,” said Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary. “The Trump-McMahon Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights will investigate this matter fully to ensure that individuals are judged based on their merit and accomplishment, not the color of their skin.”
Craig noted the irony of GMU’s race- and sex-based discrimination. GMU is named in honor of the man who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
Photo credit: By Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States – George Mason University – Arlington, CC BY 2.0, link
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