George Mason President, Facing an Array of Federal Discrimination Probes, Taps Ex-Maryland AG As His Personal Attorney

George Mason University president Gregory Washington has made it even harder for his school to handle multiple federal probes into his policies and actions by retaining a former Maryland attorney general to represent him in his personal capacity.

Douglas Gansler, who heads Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s state attorney general practice, specializes in government investigations, and served as Maryland’s top prosecutor from 2007 to 2015, confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon that he is representing Washington. That move is likely an act of self-preservation, according to legal experts.

Gansler entering the fray sets up a three-way battle of sorts, complicating negotiations with the Trump administration. Washington and George Mason—represented by former attorney general Bill Barr’s firm, Torridon Law—will at times have competing interests while both simultaneously navigate five federal probes investigating alleged race-based hiring and campus anti-Semitism at the university.

Alliance for Consumers executive director and former Arizona solicitor general O.H. Skinner told the Free Beacon that Washington hiring Gansler is likely a sign he feels his interests and George Mason’s aren’t “fully aligned.”

“It’s not wholly abnormal for a crucial witness or employee to have their own counsel in connection with a government investigation. However, when a key employee hires their own prominent counsel well down the road in an ongoing investigation, especially after the employee becomes the subject of repeated news coverage and focal point of public attention in connection with the investigation, it is at least a signal that the employee does not see their own interests with respect to the handling of the investigation and its resolution as being fully aligned with the interest of the employer,” Skinner said.

“When this happens, it can introduce some more complicated dynamics into the investigation and resolution because there become more varied interests and voices and prominent lawyers sitting at the table during the negotiation phase,” he added.

Center for Equal Opportunity general counsel Shawna Bray told the Free Beacon that hiring Gansler “suggests that President Washington appreciates the gravity of the situation that his policies and public statements have put him in,” given the attorney’s “deep experience in government investigations.” She also noted that Gansler’s services are likely expensive.

It isn’t clear whether Washington is personally footing the bill or if George Mason and Virginia taxpayers, by extension, are on the hook. The public university did not respond to a request for comment.

The added complications come as the Trump administration notches wins in its battles against universities. Columbia and Brown in July agreed to pay $200 million and $50 million, respectively, to close civil rights investigations, while Harvard University has indicated it’s open to paying up to $500 million.

And while Washington may have good reason to be concerned about his own future, given that University of Virginia president James Ryan resigned under pressure from the Trump administration, all five federal probes into George Mason stem directly from his own DEI policies and handling of campus anti-Semitism.

Immediately after taking office in July 2020, Washington announced a flurry of race-conscious initiatives aimed at changing the way the university hired, promoted, and paid faculty members, the Free Beacon reported.

“Professional experience will always be vital in recruiting our workforce, but so must lived experiences,” Washington wrote in an April 2021 message titled “Adopting an Inclusive Excellence Framework for Hiring Will Deliver Best Candidates.” “If you have two candidates who are both ‘above the bar’ in terms of requirements for a position, but one adds to your diversity and the other does not, then why couldn’t that candidate be better, even if that candidate may not have better credentials than the other candidate?”

Gansler and his employer, Cadwalader, have faced their own racial controversies. Cadwalader was among the law firms the Trump administration targeted for using an outside staffing agency to hire interns based on race. It ultimately agreed to end those practices and committed $100 million in pro bono work to support causes backed by the administration.

Gansler, meanwhile, came under fire in 2013 during his failed gubernatorial campaign after he was recorded saying of his opponent and eventual successor as attorney general, Anthony Brown, “I mean, right now his campaign slogan is, ‘Vote for me, I want to be the first African American governor of Maryland.’”

Following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack, as anti-Israel activists began to grip George Mason’s campus, a group of nearly 20 lawmakers asked Washington to denounce anti-Semitism, the Free Beacon reported. They argued that any comments he’d made on the matter were full of caveats, unlike his statements condemning Islamophobia and supporting racial justice.

In response, the Trump Department of Education launched two probes in July, one into the alleged race-based hiring and another into campus anti-Semitism. The Justice Department launched two of its own, as well as a third scrutinizing a resolution George Mason’s Faculty Senate adopted defending Washington. The university has denied wrongdoing.

In some ways, Washington hiring Gansler is just the latest escalation between the president and George Mason’s Board of Visitors, which hired Torridon Law. He’s been increasingly at odds with the board as Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has attempted to add conservative members.

The board is set to review Washington’s performance Friday morning, but whether it ends with Washington’s ousting, as some have speculated, may depend on a last-minute court ruling. Earlier this week, a Fairfax County circuit court judge ruled that four Youngkin appointees couldn’t be recognized, but the court will determine whether to issue a stay on that decision just before, or even during, the board meeting.

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