The legal question is whether these 22 board members have in fact been rejected. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told the schools in a June letter that the power to refuse confirmation of Mr. Youngkin’s appointees “rests with the General Assembly as a whole,” and it “requires more than action by a single committee of one house.” If so, they could keep serving until the next legislative session. A Fairfax County judge ruled against that view in July, which is what’s being appealed.
This legal limbo is a particular problem for GMU, which faces a deadline to resolve allegations that it violated the Civil Rights Act. In late August the Education Department offered the school 10 days to accept its terms, which included a public apology from President Gregory Washington. So far he has declined.
“An apology will amount to an admission that the university did something unlawful,” his attorney wrote to GMU’s board. The government’s claim that the school discriminated in hiring and promotion “borders on the absurd,” the letter said, arguing that “no job applicant has been discriminated against by GMU,” and the Education Department is misconstruing Mr. Washington’s remarks on diversity.
At risk is millions in federal research funding for GMU, which doesn’t have a huge endowment like Harvard or other private schools that have tangled with the White House. In recent years a $1.5 million grant supported GMU research on “underwater explosions and their effects on civil engineering infrastructure,” and $3.2 million funded a project with an Army institute to study hemorrhagic diseases.
Perhaps one way out of this mess would be to fire Mr. Washington, though can the board do that if it lacks a quorum? In a Friday statement, the board said it hopes to negotiate with the Education Department. If that fails and Mr. Washington won’t bend, then Democrats may have locked George Mason into legal liability and thrown away the keys.