The George Mason University Board of Visitors hasn’t offered an explanation of why it has postponed a long-scheduled meeting on Thursday in Arlington County.
It doesn’t need one. The board doesn’t have enough members confirmed by the General Assembly to constitute a quorum.
“It’s pretty easy,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-11th, a former rector at George Mason. “You don’t have a quorum, you can’t act.”
The board doesn’t have a quorum because a Virginia Senate committee rejected 10 members whom Gov. Glenn Youngkin had appointed since the legislature adjourned in late February. The Senate Privileges and Election Committee also refused to confirm seven of the Republican governor’s appointments to the board of visitors at Virginia Military Institute and five to the governing board at the University of Virginia.
A Fairfax County judge upheld the committee action in a July 29 ruling that prevented eight of the governor’s appointees to the three institutions from serving on their boards, pending an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court. The committee then rejected 14 additional appointments on Aug. 28, making them ineligible to continue serving on the boards.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said postponement of the board meeting makes clear that the judge’s ruling stands, at least for now.
“I’m pleased that the George Mason board of visitors is acknowledging that we have a rule of law in the Commonwealth and a judge’s order has to be followed,” Surovell said Wednesday.
Youngkin will appear at George Mason’s Fuse Center in Arlington County on Thursday afternoon to formally celebrate its opening, as well as the naming of the new School of Computing after philanthropists Kimmy Duong and Long Nguyen. The university also is cutting the ribbon on the new Energy Exploration Center, known as E2, which will include a simulated nuclear control room for small modular reactors, which the governor is promoting as part of his energy policy.
He has reacted furiously to the Senate’s treatment of his appointees to the three governing boards.
Senate Democrats say they are trying to protect the institutions from political interference. In late February, Youngkin’s appointees at VMI voted not to renew the contract of Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins, the first Black superintendent in the institute’s history. President Donald Trump’s administration forced University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and launched investigations of George Mason that target President Greg Washington, who, like Wins, is the first Black leader in the institution’s history.
The George Mason board, meeting on Aug. 1 without four of its members, did not move to dismiss Washington, but instead awarded him a small salary increase. However, the Trump administration subsequently concluded that the university had violated federal civil rights laws by promoting diversity in staff hiring and promotions. The Department of Education demanded an apology by Washington as part of any settlement, but he has refused.
Davis was rector when George Mason hired Washington five years ago and he defends the president’s leadership of the university.
He noted that George Mason ranked 117th on the list of best colleges that U.S. News & World Report just released. In Virginia, the university ranks below only UVa, Virginia Tech and the College of William & Mary.
“The school is doing great, the law school is doing better,” Davis said Wednesday. “Why are you putting everything at risk?”
The former Northern Virginia congressman previously had warned that Republicans were “playing with fire” by going after institutions through appointments to their governing boards. He said Wednesday that the political impasse “cries out for everybody sitting down” to negotiate a compromise.
James Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason, has been lobbying hard to protect Washington and his governance of the university.
He said the Senate committee’s refusal to confirm Youngkin’s appointments to the university 16-member board leaves it with just six sitting members — two short of a quorum to take formal actions.
Finkelstein said the board ultimately delegates most of its authority to the president, Washington.
He said the impasse is “a bit messy,” but added, “I don’t think anyone at the university is missing a beat in operating the university.”
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