George Mason President Defends DEI, Refuses to Issue an Apology

Applying to College College Headlines
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George Mason University President Gregory Washington announced that he will not issue an apology to satisfy the demand of the Education Department, which alleged that the school has violated federal civil rights law.

Attorney Douglas Gansler, who wrote and sent the letter to the Virginia school’s Board of Visitors on behalf of university President Gregory Washington, said both Washington and the board are “far from needing to apologize.”

“To be clear, per OCR’s own findings, no job applicant has been discriminated against by GMU, nor has OCR attempted to name someone who has been discriminated against by GMU in any context,” the letter says. “Therefore, it is a legal fiction for OCR to even assert or claim that there has been a Title VI or Title IX violation here.”

It argues the Office of Civil Rights’ allegation that George Mason engages in discriminatory practices “borders on the absurd.”

The story is also covered here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/08/25/george-mason-president-refuses-apology-dei/

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Bravo to him. Notable that the Black president of a non-elite university is the one taking such a clear and forceful stand (and not surprising that he is the target of this administration).

But the title of this post is inaccurate @CC_Sorin. He did not “defend DEI,” at least not according to the source article. He asserted that the government had not demonstrated that GMU demonstrated any discrimination in hiring and rejected the demand for an apology.

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There is more reporting about this here, which tends to suggest the President is also defending the school’s DEI policy:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/08/25/george-mason-president-refuses-apology-dei/

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And I’m glad he is! I would recommend including the link to the WaPo article in the initial post.

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Paywall

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Again, very weird cause I can access the article fine. I even set a US IP through a VPN. :man_shrugging:

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No worries.

Probably Bezos’ way of getting back to us who cancelled our subscriptions