Dear Colleagues and the Broader Mason Community:

We are facing serious threats to the integrity of our university. Over the past several months, BOV members appointed by Governor Youngkin have taken calculated actions that, to our knowledge, are unprecedented. As we describe below, these actions threaten Mason's academic freedom and our joint commitment to shared governance, the very standards that are the bedrock of colleges and universities across the United States. Please sign our petition. Tell the BOV that Mason faculty, not BOV members, must set the curriculum and evaluate the value of faculty research. Help us protect Mason's faculty, students, and our institution of higher education from political interference. If you're on your phone, you'll need to scroll all the way down.

If Mason--the largest public university in the Commonwealth--is taken over by political appointees who wish to interfere with our curriculum and promotion and tenure outcomes, we will serve as a road-map for the denigration of the rest of Virginia's public colleges and universities.

The Short Version (tldr)

1. The BOV and faculty tenure review. At the BOV meeting on February 22nd and in meetings with the administration, we learned that BOV members requested and were provided with the full dossiers of tenure and promotion candidates. When these full dossiers proved too onerous to review, BOV members requested the ability to review only the publications of faculty up for tenure review. Our administration sources tell us that these BOV members may only wish to review the publication records of "problematic" candidates. We don't know what "problematic" means, but we do know that BOV members are not qualified to assess the value of faculty scholarship.

If you believe only faculty and qualified administrators should play a role in assessing the scholarly contributions of faculty, sign our petition.

2. The BOV and the Mason Core. At the meeting, multiple board members voiced opposition to the new Just Societies flag in the Mason Core and claimed that the Board had the authority to make unilateral changes to Mason's curriculum. This would be a massive overreach and a clear violation of AAUP principles which put curricular decisions squarely in faculty hands.

If you believe that faculty, not political appointees, must set Mason's curriculum, sign our petition.

The Longer Version (with receipts)

Below, we describe how BOV members are ignoring decades of precedent, trampling on the standards and norms of colleges and universities across the US, and overstepping its authority.

1. Overreach into Promotion and Tenure processes

Statements made during the BOV meeting confirmed what we have heard whispered behind the scenes. Members of the BOV have requested to inspect individual faculty P&T dossiers. We know the administration has already given BOV members access to at least two faculty dossiers. Given the sheer volume of cases, this access proved to be too much information for the May meeting (when approximately 70 cases will be decided). During the February 22nd meeting, Interim Provost Walsh again explained the review process to the BOV members in attendance. Visitor Jeffrey Rosen, the former Acting Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General in the Trump Administration, then asked if, rather than accessing full dossiers, the BOV could instead just have access to P&T candidates’ scholarship. After some discussion, the Provost and President agreed to provide Board members with links to faculty scholarship. In a follow-up conversation with an administrator, we were told that certain BOV members want to review the dossiers or published works of candidates who may be “problematic.” While we do not know what “problematic” means, we are concerned, especially given the comments of a few Board members, that those faculty whose scholarship centers on social justice, equity, and diversity matters may be targeted for review.

For example, Visitor Stimson had this to say at one point during the February 22nd meeting: “...this whole DEI infrastructure is embedded throughout, weed and branch, throughout every course and is inconsistent with the Chicago Principles...But Corporate America is moving away from DEI...they are all moving out of that because they realize that the Ibram X. Kendi thing is a hoax....and so when I read [the board book]…including all the syllabus…every single course [with a Just Societies flag]…has a ‘define key terms related to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as related to this course’s field or discipline.’ That has no bearing, in my opinion, on that course and I think it should all be pulled out, root and branch."

2. Threatening to Interfere with the Mason Core

As reported by GMU-AAUP in January, a GMU administrator confirmed that at least one BOV member (we suspect Visitor Lindsey Burke from the Heritage Foundation) and the VA Deputy Secretary of Education requested that the administration provide them with Just Societies flagged syllabi (already approved by the Mason Core Committee) for review. Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education Keith Renshaw provided 16 syllabi, one example for each currently approved course, with faculty names redacted. These syllabi were published in the BOV board book without the prior knowledge or approval of the respective faculty members.

During the February 22 BOV meeting, Associate Provost Renshaw presented the work of the Mason Core Committee, with a particular focus on the nearly 10-year proposal and approval process for the updated Mason Core, including the Just Societies (JS) flag. The BOV was reminded that the Mason Core process and changes had been reviewed and approved by the BOV several times. They were also reminded that the new Just Societies flag was already built into the catalog and is set for a Fall semester roll-out after years of planning and preparation. Nonetheless, multiple members of the Board (Reginald Brown, Michael Meese, Jeffrey Rosen, Cully Stimson) raised questions during the meeting, including questioning the validity and necessity of the flag, insisting on calling it a “mandate,” and repeatedly referring to the JS flag as an "academic program." These Visitors suggested that the Board could vote to suspend the Just Societies flag (Visitor Brown), and we learned a committee of two (Visitors Meese and Witeck) had been formed to “study” the JS core requirement. Some Visitors voiced a desire to delay the JS flag so they would have time for further deliberations and possible changes in May. This is where things landed, to our utter dismay.

3. What should have been said at the February 22, 2024 BOV meeting?

How about this? Faculty, not political appointees, must set Mason’s curriculum. The BOV must respect the GMU Faculty Handbook, the AAUP standards, and decades of tradition regarding the limited oversight role of governing boards. The BOV must uphold its long-standing commitments to the faculty and to the principle of shared governance. In addition, who has the expertise to judge whether a faculty member has achieved genuine excellence and qualifies for promotion and tenure? Again, only faculty and administrators (who were themselves once faculty) should play a role in determining tenure cases. The Board’s only role is to ensure process integrity, as affirmed by Rector Blackman during the meeting. Political appointees are certainly not qualified to review and judge the quality of our scholarship.

There is no debate here. The Visitors attacking our curriculum are claiming abilities and powers they do not have. According to the Faculty Handbook and the AAUP Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, the faculty, not the Board of Visitors, are in charge of the curriculum and faculty status. Where will this lead if the BOV continues to violate the norms and academic standards that we follow and uphold? If political appointees of the BOV determine who is tenured and what our curriculum looks like, we risk losing our reputation and our national rankings. We will face the possibility of sanctions by our accreditors and the AAUP. Indeed, the AAUP recently sanctioned New College in Florida for their board’s substantial noncompliance with widely accepted standards of academic government.

Our reputation as a destination for great faculty and students will be sullied. How many faculty will leave? How will we recruit new faculty under this regime? We will certainly no longer be the outstanding institution of higher education we are right now.

As the 1966 AAUP Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities makes clear, the BOV “should undertake appropriate self-limitation” in this moment.

4. Here's additional background from the 1966 AAUP Statement