BY BETHANY LETIECQ, TIM GIBSON, AND JAMES FINKELSTEIN

This blog post is the second in a series on the transformation of George Mason University’s board. Read part I here.

From Conservative Oversight to Extreme Partisan Activism

In recent years, George Mason University’s Board of Visitors (BOV) has dramatically transformed from conservative oversight to extreme partisan activism. This transformation is driven by Governor Glenn Youngkin’s appointments of ideologically motivated individuals with direct ties to right-wing organizations. Unlike past boards that largely respected faculty governance and institutional autonomy, today’s BOV actively intervenes in curriculum decisions, faculty hiring and promotion, and campus discourse under the guise of institutional neutrality and combating antisemitism.

Here, we examine the board’s latest efforts to consolidate ideological control, including its puzzling resurrection of the 50-year-old Shils Report (described below), and explore the broader implications for faculty governance, academic freedom, and the future of public higher education.

Why Is Mason’s Board Discussing a 50-Year-Old Report?

In the spirit of “flooding the zone,” Mason’s Board of Visitors (BOV) is discussing the Shils Report—a document so obscure that most people have never heard of it. The report is the least well-known part of what is sometimes referred to as the Chicago Trifecta, which includes:

• The Chicago Principles – Defining the university’s commitment to freedom of expression.
• The Kalven Report – Establishing institutional neutrality on political and social matters.
• The Shils Report – Laying out guidelines for faculty appointments and promotions.

The Stanford Alumni for Free Speech and Critical Thinking have summarized these reports.  All three were written exclusively by faculty committees appointed by the university president, without input from administrators or board members. As far as we can determine, only the Chicago Principles were formally adopted by the University of Chicago Board of Trustees.

A Report from a Different Era

Written in 1970, the Shils Report reflects an academic landscape vastly different from today’s universities. The committee that authored it consisted of twelve faculty members:

• Demographics: 9 White men, 1 White woman, 1 Black man, and 1 South Asian Indian man.
• Fields of Study: 6 from STEM, 3 from humanities, 3 from social sciences.
• Academic Rank: 1 assistant professor, 1 associate professor, and 10 full professors—8 of whom held named or distinguished positions.

The higher education system at the time was equally different:

• Enrollment: In 1970, about 7.4 million students were enrolled in colleges. At four-year institutions, 57% were men, and 43% were women—a ratio that has now reversed.
• Diversity: 91% of college students were White. By 2022, students of color comprised over 45% of total enrollment.
• Costs: The average tuition and fees at a public four-year university in 1970 were $394; at a private university, $1,706. In 2023, those costs soared to $9,750 and $35,248, respectively.

The Shils Report: A Legacy of Controversy

While the Shils Report sought to uphold academic excellence through a merit-based approach, it has faced longstanding criticism for:

• Reinforcing elitism: Prioritizing research prestige over teaching quality, disproportionately favoring faculty from elite institutions.
• Undervaluing teaching: Creating an academic culture where faculty advancement is based mainly on research output rather than classroom performance.
• Overlooking diversity and inclusion: Ignoring the systemic barriers that underrepresented scholars face in hiring and promotion.
• Resisting evolving academic trends: Failing to adapt to interdisciplinary scholarship, broader societal concerns, and the changing nature of higher education.

Though intended to promote rigorous faculty evaluation, the report’s rigid and opaque criteria have raised concerns about equity, transparency, and adaptability. Its principles fail to support a more inclusive, balanced, and forward-thinking faculty hiring and evaluation system in today’s rapidly evolving academic landscape.

Why Now?

With these issues in mind, the real question is: Why is Mason’s governing board discussing a half-century-old report?

For those who don’t remember, 1970 was hardly a golden age for higher education. That year, universities nationwide faced unprecedented student unrest, political turmoil, and violent crackdowns.  Students at the University of Chicago participated in a nationwide strike, protested military research, and advocated for greater Black representation in faculty and curriculum.  Just the year before, students had occupied campus buildings over issues like academic governance and the firing of a popular professor.

Nationwide, protests disrupted campuses, often with tragic results:

• Kent State University: Four students killed by National Guard troops (May 4, 1970).
• Jackson State University: Two students killed in a police shooting (May 14, 1970).
• Over 400 campuses shut down due to student strikes and security concerns.
• University of Wisconsin-Madison: A bombing at a campus building killed a researcher and injured others.
• Ohio State University: Tear gas used against student demonstrators.
• Miami University (Ohio): The ROTC building was set on fire.
• Portland State University: Police forcibly removed demonstrators, injuring about 30 protesters.

Given the historical context, it is puzzling—if not outright concerning—that Mason’s Board of Visitors is revisiting a half-century-old report rather than engaging with the pressing challenges of today’s higher education environment.

What’s the real agenda here?

In adopting the Kalven Report, Mason’s BOV committed to institutional neutrality, albeit primarily restraining the university’s president and the governing board chair.  From our perspective, however, it’s hard to see how the BOV isn’t violating that restraint by singling out Jews, Israelis, and Zionists for special protections at the expense of free speech and academic freedom.  Further, we won’t be surprised if the BOV uses the same “rope-a-dope” strategy for adopting the Kalven Report to incorporate the Shils Report as university policy.

To us, this appears to be a hostile takeover of the university, or perhaps a coup, by conservative activists who are either uninterested or unwilling to act as “visitors” in the manner envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. He selected the term “visitor” in 1817 when the governing board was formed for Central College, now known as the University of Virginia. The term embodied the dignity and respect that Jefferson envisioned for an institution of higher learning and intellectual inquiry.

Jefferson aimed to express the board’s responsibility for oversight through visitation to ensure that the institution adhered to its founding principles.  Our university’s founding principles are best expressed in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, authored by our namesake, George Mason. 

Conclusion

The recent transformations of Mason’s Board of Visitors are not simply a continuation of past conservative appointments but a radical departure from traditional governance. The shift to direct ideological intervention represents a profound challenge to faculty governance, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy. While past conservative board members may have had ideological leanings, they largely respected the university’s academic mission and the boundaries between administration and faculty decision-making.

Under Governor Youngkin’s appointees, however, the Mason BOV has not only blurred these boundaries but actively undermined them, imposing top-down mandates on curriculum, tenure decisions, and campus discourse. The board’s embrace of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, its willingness to override faculty governance, and its potential move toward incorporating the Shils Report all suggest a broader strategy: reshaping the university into a vehicle for conservative activism rather than a space for open inquiry and debate.

This raises pressing questions about the future of Mason and public higher education more broadly. If a governing board can disregard faculty expertise, dictate ideological constraints on curriculum, and police campus discourse under the guise of neutrality, what remains of free speech and academic freedom, not to mention shared governance?

Mason’s experience serves as a cautionary tale for universities nationwide. The battle over governance at Mason concerns not just one institution but whether universities can remain bastions of intellectual independence in an era of increasing political intervention.

Faculty, students, community leaders, lawmakers, and advocates for higher education must recognize these shifts as not only an existential threat to the fundamental principles of shared governance and academic freedom, but also the real possibility of an eternal dystopia, followed by a total paradigm collapse in which the concepts of meaning, reality, and consciousness are destroyed or rendered irrelevant.

As Mason’s board continues to assert ideological control and extreme partisan activism, and the administration offers little resistance to their takeover, the question remains whether we can mount the kind of effort necessary to win back our beloved institution.

Bethany Letiecq is a professor of education and human development at George Mason University, as well as the president of the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Tim Gibson serves as an associate professor of communication at George Mason University and is the president of the Virginia Conference of the American Association of University Professors. James Finkelstein holds the title of professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason University.