Meet the New DEI, Same as the Old DEI

At a jam-packed meeting last week, the George Mason University Board of Visitors received a briefing from Sharnnia Artis, the university’s former vice president for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, on how the university is complying with a Trump administration mandate to dismantle DEI and racial preferences.

For starters, Artis has a new title — vice president for access, compliance and community.

And she runs the same office as before, but it has been renamed the Office of Access, Compliance, and Community.

It’s apparent that GMU has made only superficial changes to DEI. What was refreshing about the GMU board meeting, however, is that it was held in open session — in marked contrast to the University of Virginia, where Board of Visitors deliberations have been held in closed session and veiled from the public. UVA President Jim Ryan submitted a written report to the Board, but that has been withheld from the public as well.

While swapping names and titles is an obvious subterfuge to avoid compliance with the Trump administration executive order, it appears from FFX Now’s account of the board meeting that the GMU administration under President Gregory Washington at least has made a few modest changes.

The following programs have been dissolved or eliminated since January in response to Trump’s demand:

• Promotion of third-party opportunities that use race-conscious criteria;

• Institutional partnership with The PhD Program;

• Use of Affirmative Action Plans for Women and Minorities;

• Use of diversity statements in hiring and promotion;

• Director of Supplier Diversity position.

Several jobs have been eliminated or “realigned to reflect broader institutional priorities,” and six research projects related to diversity were terminated, Artis said.

Additionally, Artis said, the school has paused 112 GMU Foundation-managed scholarships and the Black Male Success Initiative.

Dozens of members of the GMU community attended the Board meeting. Many protested outside. GMU set up an overflow room where the public could watch the proceedings on video.

Compare that to UVA, which declined to livestream its recent special session on DEI at all. State law requires only regularly-scheduled Board meetings to be livestreamed, the administration said. The Board went so far as to move the meeting off Grounds to the Boar’s Head Inn, where it was far less accessible to members of the UVA community. (UVA normally holds its Health Systems Board meetings at the Boar’s Head and its full Board meetings in the Rotunda.)

I don’t agree with the GMU demonstrators, whose sentiments I find hopelessly ill-informed and misguided. But I totally support their right to protest and their right to hear the Board’s deliberations. Washington and Board members had interesting things to say about the tension between DEI and intellectual diversity. The GMU community was better off because of it.

While GMU’s whitewashing of DEI does nothing to change the underlying problem — the prevalence of the oppressor-oppressed social-justice paradigm — President Washington and the Board of Visitors deserve credit for openness. They have created space where a hashing out of conflicting views can occur.

No such openness is to be found at UVA. The only thing remotely resembling a dialogue took place on the pages of the student-run Cavalier Daily, which presented a full and accurate description of former Board member Bert Ellis’s views on DEI, along with student criticisms.

UVA leadership by contrast sets a horrible example for students. The president, Board members, and university counsel should be ashamed.