DC US attorney tells Georgetown he won't hire from any school with 'DEI'
Georgetown University's Healy Hall. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin demanded that the dean of Georgetown Law School end all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the school, asserting in a letter that his office will not consider hiring anyone affiliated with a university that utilizes DEI.
The warning was delivered in a letter dated Feb. 17 to William M. Treanor, a constitutional law scholar and one of the longest-serving deans of the largest law school in the nation’s capital. The first letter was misaddressed, but it was re-sent Monday.
“At this time, you should know that no applicant for our fellows program, our summer internship, or employment in our office who is a student or afiliated with a law school or university that continues to teach and utilize DEI will be considered,” Martin wrote in the two-page letter.
Martin added two questions: “First, have you eliminated all DEI from your school and its curriculum? Second, if DEI is found in your courses or teaching in any way, will you move swiftly to remove it?”
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office said there was no immediate comment. Martin’s letter was first reported and posted by the Post Millennial, a right-wing website, and confirmed to The Washington Post by two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private correspondence.
In a statement, Georgetown spokeswoman Meghan Dubyak defended the university’s practices, which she said are protected under the Constitution.
“The letter inquires about Georgetown’s curriculum and classroom teaching, which is protected by the First Amendment,” Dubyak said. “Restricting or suppressing legally protected speech would contradict the First Amendment, contravene the University’s mission, and undermine the educational experience that prepares students to navigate an increasingly complex world.”
Dubyak added that the university complies with federal and local regulations, that it was founded on the principle that discourse among diverse peoples “promotes intellectual, ethical and spiritual understanding,” and that its law school is open to all students.
Treanor, who has been named as one of the most influential legal educators in the country, announced in December that he will step down and rejoin the faculty full-time on June 30 after serving 15 years in the dean’s role.
Spokespeople for other universities with law schools in the District either declined to comment or could not immediately be reached Wednesday night.
The D.C. U.S. attorney’s office employs about 350 prosecutors and hundreds more paralegals and staff, and has been a longtime entry point and training ground for lawyers who seek to serve in the federal government. Its alumni have served among the highest levels of federal agencies, including the Justice Department. Georgetown Law School’s alumni include more than four dozen sitting federal judges and Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell.
Martin’s letter came after the Trump administration’s Department of Education told U.S. schools and universities on Feb. 18 to eliminate diversity initiatives and “racial preferences” in admissions, financial aid, hiring or other areas within two weeks or risk losing federal money. A subsequent document last week softened that stance, stating that by law the federal government cannot dictate curriculum.
Separately, a federal judge has temporarily barred enforcement against large universities and publicly traded companies from a Trump executive order to cancel federal contracts that include components of DEI.
Art Coleman, the deputy assistant secretary for civil rights in the Clinton administration’s Education Department, called Martin’s letter an “overreach” and a continuation of the administration’s efforts to brand DEI as “intrinsically suspect.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. Federal law does not ban universities from teaching lessons about diversity, equity and inclusion, he said. By calling DEI “unacceptable,” he said, Martin was trying to impose his policy worldview on the school.
It was not immediately clear why Martin, a devout Catholic and lawyer, apparently singled out Georgetown, which is the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university with a prestigious law school.
But in previous public comments, Martin has cast the school as anti-Trump. He has pointed in particular to the role one member of its law school faculty played in organizing a bipartisan group of prominent legal, governmental and media players to prepare in 2020 for the aftermath of a potentially contested presidential election, and a law school center that employs former U.S. officials who have criticized Trump.
“HOYAGATE is a bigger deal than anyone knows,” Martin posted on X last March, referencing an article by the conservative right-wing American Spectator titled “#Hoyagate: Georgetown Law is Vatican of Trump Hatred.” The piece argued the university’s $1 billion in federal grant, loan and research fees over six years should be cut.
Georgetown “is really the locus of the sort of anti-, what Trump, anti-Republican activity for the last five years, it looks like,” Martin said on his podcast at the time.
Caitlin Gilbert and Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
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