National Review reports that the Justice Department announced that it found my university, George Mason, in violation of Title VI:
At the center of the scandal is Gregory Washington, the university's first black president, whom faculty allege spearheaded the Northern Virginia school's diversity practices. In April 2021, for example, Washington penned a letter to the school's faculty and staff about how to promote "inclusive excellence" in hiring. "While a majority of our students are non-white," he wrote, "just 30 percent of our faculty are from ethnic minority, multi-ethnic, or international communities." And to achieve the university's vision, he continued, "we first have to adopt a broader, shared understanding of what 'best' means when recruiting faculty and staff at Mason."
"If you have two candidates who are both 'above the bar' in terms of requirements for a position, but one adds to your diversity and the other does not," Washington continued, "then why couldn't that candidate be better, even if that candidate may not have better credentials than the other candidate?"
I first learned of this plan early on: the new university administration's explicit goal was to use preferential hiring make the faculty and student body mirror the demographics of Northern Virginia. I objected, pointing out that regardless of one's policy preferences, using affirmative action in faculty hiring to achieve demographic "balance" was plainly illegal. I even offered to explain why.
