Professors, campus community rally against Trump attacks on GMU, UVA

Professors worry about the chilling effect of the Trump administration’s investigations on academic freedom. 

University professors, labor organizations, and civil rights groups are rallying in support of Virginia university presidents being targeted by the Trump administration for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

On Friday, local representatives from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), United Campus Workers of Virginia, and AFT Virginia joined a rally at George Mason University in Fairfax in support of the school’s embattled leader, President Gregory Washington.

Washington, like former University of Virginia president Jim Ryan, has drawn the ire of the Trump administration for overseeing efforts to promote DEI initiatives. George Mason, Virginia’s largest public four-year university, is the subject of multiple investigations.

The US Department of Justice and the US Department of Education opened investigations in July into George Mason’s hiring practices amid allegations they were discriminatory. The Department of Justice is also investigating George Mason’s Faculty Senate after it approved a resolution in support of Washington.

To many local and state leaders, professors, and students, the pressure exerted on public higher education in Virginia is just another front in the right-wing culture war being waged under the leadership of President Donald Trump and Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Faculty members are concerned about academic freedom as these politicized and politically-motivated investigations play out, said Tim Gibson, who’s taught at George Mason for more than 20 years and is a member of a local chapter of AAUP.

“Our faculty are becoming afraid of getting in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice, and that is a direct violation of academic freedom,” Gibson told Dogwood. “It chills our ability to teach the best that is thought and said in our disciplines.”

Over the years, George Mason’s faculty has had disagreements with different university leaders, but it was always “in the sphere of legitimate governance” and both sides clearly cared about the mission of the university, Gibson said.

“Our current Board of Visitors is different,” Gibson said. “It is clear that they care more about a political agenda, the governor’s political agenda, the president’s political agenda, than they do in protecting and serving the public mission of George Mason.”

Ida Hoequist, an organizer with United Campus Workers of Virginia and former UVA graduate student, said UVA was the testing ground for the playbook now being followed at George Mason.

UVA’s former president Ryan resigned in June under extraordinary pressure from the Trump administration, which threatened to pull hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding from the school. Ryan said that he feared that had he tried to fight the Trump administration, it would have been unfair to “hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld.”

Washington at George Mason has thus far managed to avoid a similar fate: last week, George Mason’s Board of Visitors voted to give him a raise.

Hoequist said campus workers stand with the university presidents being pressured for their work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“None of the workers at UVA would have kicked out Jim Ryan,” Hoequist told Dogwood. “None of our workers want to end what Jim Ryan was retaliated [against] for.”

Hoequist hoped that more people feel empowered when it comes to the decision making process across higher education in Virginia.

“The only thing that will prevent something like this from happening again is when the people who do the work — who make the university run — are the people who are making the decisions,” Hoequist said.

The Trump administration’s bid to exert control over Virginia universities is part of a broader effort to reshape higher education in America. Similar tactics have been deployed against  Harvard University in Massachusetts and Columbia University in New York.

Beyond going after DEI practices, Trump’s attacks on higher education have included attempts at restricting certain international students from attending US universities and cracking down on faculty for being pro-Palestine.

In Virginia, a broad coalition of civil rights groups, students, and political leaders are mobilizing to fight back. For Virginia NAACP president, Rev. Cozy Bailey, it appears that the Trump administration is acting out the recommendations contained in the conservative policy document known as Project 2025.

“It’s important for us to understand that we are in the midst of a coordinated plan to implement the anti-democracy, and in many ways racist, manifesto known as Project 2025,” Bailey said at last week’s rally.