A group of professors at the university in Fairfax County filed a report asserting that university leadership illegally use race as a factor in hiring and promotions. The complaint alleges that the school's president, Gregory Washington, instructed administrators to consider how an applicant would improve the school's diversity, "even if that candidate may not have better credentials than the other candidate." 

Craig Trainor, the education department's acting assistant secretary for Civil Rights, alleged in a statement Thursday that Mason's hiring practices appear to 'champion illegal racial preferencing,' violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." reports the Richmond Times Dispatch.