In a pointed letter to the George Mason University community Wednesday, President Gregory Washington defended his institution against the Trump administration, which launched an investigation last week into the university’s alleged violations of Title VI.

According to an announcement from the Education Department, GMU “illegally uses race and other immutable characteristics in university policies, including hiring and promotion.”

In his letter, Washington vowed to “cooperate fully” with the Office for Civil Rights.

“I can assure you that George Mason has always operated with a commitment to equality under the law, ever since our inception,” he wrote. ”It is simply the Mason way, and in my experience, it has not discriminated based on race, color, national origin, or otherwise. Our diversity efforts are designed to expand opportunity and build inclusive excellence—not to exclude or advantage any group unlawfully.”

He offered a brief history of Title VI—which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in federally funded programs—and the rest of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Then, without naming any names, he essentially accused the Trump administration of willfully misinterpreting the law.

“Today, we are seeing a profound shift in how Title VI is being applied,” he wrote. “Longstanding efforts to address inequality—such as mentoring programs, inclusive hiring practices, and support for historically underrepresented groups—are in many cases being reinterpreted as presumptively unlawful. Broad terms like ‘illegal DEI’ are now used without definition, allowing virtually any initiative that touches on identity or inclusion to be painted as discriminatory.

“This shift represents a stark departure from the spirit in which civil rights law was written: not to erase difference, but to protect individuals from exclusion and to enable equal opportunity for all.”

He noted that GMU—which enrolls roughly 40,000 students—admits 90 percent of applicants and has more Pell-eligible students than any other institution in Virginia.

The university’s mission “includes the belief that diversity includes thought, background, and circumstance and any attempt to artificially redefine our diversity, as one of race-based exclusivity, is doomed to fail no matter who ends up being excluded,” he wrote.