by James A. Bacon
Lefty professors are fearful that a new Board of Visitors, now comprised of a majority of Youngkin appointees, is about to unleash a right-wing revolution at George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public university.
Six of the 12 Youngkin-appointed board members are, or have been, affiliated with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, which recently produced a detailed document, Project 2025, laying out policy options for the next Republican president. Many on the left have decried Project 2025 as a dystopian blueprint for ending democracy and imposing a right-wing autocracy if Donald Trump is elected.
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An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education catalogs concerns articulated by Bethany Letiecq, a professor in GMU’s College of Education and Human Development and chair of the state American Association of University Professors (AAUP) conference.
Letiecq avoids the apocalyptic rhetoric typical of “progressive” media voices, but she warns that GMU is “incredibly vulnerable as a test case for what Project 2025 could look like on campus…. My feeling is, we’ve been captured.”
Letiecq is worried that the new board will bring a new governing philosophy to GMU. “All the ingredients” appear to be in place for “real change,” she said. “We’ve had a strong sense as faculty that once the board shifted to 12-4, the gloves would come off.”
She might be right about that. I hope she is.