A former senior Justice Department official is calling out what she describes as a blatantly unconstitutional attack on legal education after the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia declared that his office would no longer hire Georgetown University Law Center graduates.
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Mary Mason, who spent more than three decades at the DOJ before retiring in early 2024, expressed deep concern over the decision, calling it an ideologically motivated assault on lawyers' ability to learn and the rule of law.
“The thought-mongering tantrum and accompanying threat of retaliation by the current administration is an embarrassment to the core tenets of law and justice that the DOJ, and indeed, this country, are founded upon,” Mason wrote in a Facebook post.
Mason, a Georgetown Law alumna and former Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow criticized interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin for his directive barring any student or graduate from schools that incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion in their curriculum from being considered for jobs, internships, or fellowships in his office.
Her criticism comes in response to Martin’s February 17 letter to Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor, in which the Trump appointee demanded that the school eliminate all DEI initiatives or risk having its graduates blacklisted.
Martin’s letter, first obtained by the right-wing news outlet The Post Millennial, makes clear his stance: “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?”
He further warned that any student applying for a Department of Justice fellowship or internship program affiliated with a law school that continues to teach DEI will not be considered.
Martin resent the letter on Monday, after an email delivery issue was resolved, urging Treanor to respond by the end of the week, as his office was beginning the review process for new hires. He said that Georgetown students and alums would not be considered because of concerns over their stance on DEI.
Treanor was critical of Martin’s position, calling the hiring ban a direct attack on Georgetown’s Jesuit mission and a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment guarantees that the government cannot direct what Georgetown and its faculty teach and how to teach it,” Treanor wrote in his response on March 6. “The Supreme Court has continually affirmed that among the freedoms central to a university’s First Amendment rights are its abilities to determine, on academic grounds, who may teach, what to teach, and how to teach it.”
Treanor went further, pointing out that the Department of Education itself confirmed that the federal government is prohibited from exercising control over school curricula.
“Your letter informs me that your office will deny our students and graduates government employment opportunities until you, as Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, approve of our curriculum,” he wrote. “Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution.”
Treanor called on Martin to confirm that Georgetown-affiliated candidates would receive full and fair consideration for employment.
For Mason, this latest move is just another step in the Trump administration’s attempt to remake the Justice Department with ideological loyalists, limiting the diversity of thought within the agency.
“This is targeted at lawyers, although presumably it also applies to anybody else from Georgetown or any school whose ideas they disapprove of,” Mason told The Advocate. “It is also going to make for a very self-selecting group of folks who are eligible to be attorneys at the DOJ, and that contributes to this kind of thought bubble where we only surround ourselves with people who think like us. And that can’t be a good idea.”
Mason, who spent decades defending the Justice Department’s positions under multiple administrations, pointed out that legal professionals are expected to represent clients and government agencies without having to agree with every policy.
“I myself, at the Justice Department, have represented all sorts of folks from all ends of the political spectrum,” Mason said. “From Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo to Al Gore—all of those people have been my clients. And in fact, we even filed a motion on behalf of President Trump when he was in office the first time.”
For Mason, this is a bedrock principle of the legal profession.
“I don’t have to agree with someone in order to zealously represent them,” she said. “In fact, I shouldn’t have to agree with them. That is counterintuitive and takes away my job and responsibility as a lawyer.”
She compared this to the American Civil Liberties Union’s history of defending people with viewpoints its attorneys may personally find repugnant but who are nonetheless entitled to legal protection.
“This sort of targeting and fear-mongering against young lawyers—the next generation of lawyers—is reprehensible,” she added. “It is not compatible with the rule of law.”
Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has initiated massive employment cuts and firings, many through the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.
Mason now teaches at American University’s Washington College of Law, where she says students are already feeling the chilling effect of Trump’s war on DEI.
“Some of my students have lost their externships. One at the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]. Another is working at Whitman-Walker, and the scope of their work has been narrowed in an attempt to avoid the administration’s rage and still fulfill their functions," she said.
She said that even some of the Justice Department’s most competitive jobs—like its prestigious Honors Program—have been revoked for incoming hires.
“It’s terrifying for young lawyers,” Mason added.
Mason’s concerns come amid a broader exodus of career officials from the DOJ as Trump and his allies consolidate control over the department.
Last week, DOJ spokesperson Joshua Stueve resigned, citing a “toxic work environment” under newly installed Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“Simply put, I cannot continue to serve in such a hostile and toxic work environment, one where leadership at the highest levels makes clear we are not welcomed or valued, much less trusted to do our jobs,” Stueve wrote in his resignation letter.
Stueve’s departure is just one of many. DOGE has aggressively cut federal employees while gaining unprecedented access to government systems.
Musk has repeatedly mocked federal workers, and his influence over the administration’s approach to governance was on display earlier this week when he reportedly clashed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Trump Cabinet meeting over his push to dismantle parts of the federal government.
According to Mason, career DOJ officials are facing an impossible choice: align with Trump’s hard-right agenda or risk being pushed out.
“There are a lot of people in DOJ who believe in the rule of law,” Mason said. “But what they’re being asked to do now is cross lines that should never be crossed.”
She said that many are choosing to stay and fight while others are seeking jobs in the judiciary or state-level agencies, hoping to weather the storm.
“The people I know at DOJ don’t want to give up on public service,” Mason said. “But they also don’t want to be forced out or fired in the process.”
Mason, who has built her career around mentoring young lawyers, worries that Trump’s legal purge will scare people away from public service altogether.
“There are courageous people who can stand up,” she said. “In some ways, young folks have more latitude to have some courage. But the fear is real.”
For law students and early-career lawyers, the threat isn’t just ideological—it’s financial.
“I have students whose Justice Department jobs were yanked away overnight,” Mason said. “They took on student loans, planned their careers around these opportunities, and now they’re left scrambling.”
She also warned that law firms and government contractors are being forced to strip DEI references from their websites to avoid political retribution.
However, rather than simply removing the term “DEI” from their résumés, Mason tells her students to reframe their experiences in ways that still communicate their values without using language that could make them a target in the current political climate.
“I tell my students, you need to be smart about how you present yourselves,” she said. “I’m not saying take DEI out of your résumé completely. But understand the consequences of pitching yourself this way in this environment. If you want to do this work long-term, you have to think about the long game.”
Mason advises students to focus on DEI’s core principles—equity, access, and justice—rather than the label itself.
“We’re really talking about equality,” she said. “I don’t care whether you call it DEI or civil rights. I spent this weekend with some old-school civil rights advocates from the 1960s, and we talked a lot about this. The words we use change over time, but the mission remains the same.”
Her advice: Describe the work, not the label.
“If you fought for inclusion, access, and equity, tell that story,” she said. “Just don’t get caught up on the language because they’re using that language as a weapon against you.”
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