GMU President Joins VA Officials In Promoting Springfield As New Site For FBI HQ

SPRINGFIELD, VA — George Mason University is throwing its support behind the effort to attract the new FBI headquarters to Springfield, citing its academic programs that align with the FBI's interests and its three campuses near the proposed site.

The university’s president, Gregory Washington, joined Virginia officials outside the General Services Administration headquarters in Washington, D.C., last week to promote the Springfield site as the best location for the FBI headquarters.

On March 9, Virginia officials made what is expected to be their final presentation to the GSA about the Springfield site. Officials from Maryland made their site pitch to the GSA on March 8.

Marymount University President Irma Becerra also was at the March 9 meeting to share how other colleges in Northern Virginia would help serve the FBI’s mission if the headquarters moved to Springfield.

As for GMU, Washington said the university "can provide the diverse talent the FBI needs for its future."

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With equity as one of the GSA’s criteria for deciding whether to choose Springfield or a site in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Washington noted that GMU is the largest public research university in Virginia, the seventh-most diverse in the country, and one with no marked disparities in graduation outcomes, the university said Monday in a news release.

At a news conference after the March 9 meeting with the GSA, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) highlighted GMU’s diversity on a national scale and how that would help the GSA meet its equity objectives for the FBI in choosing a site.

“Don’t believe me,” Warner said. “Go to the George Mason campus and walk around and you see the new face of Virginia.”

Last week, leaders from Maryland sent a letter to President Joe Biden that cited the FBI's racist practices against civil rights leaders, with the hope that the president will ensure racial equity is taken into consideration in the federal government’s decision on where a new FBI headquarters complex is built.

By selecting Prince George’s County as the new home to the FBI headquarters, the Biden administration “is presented with a legacy-defining decision that has the potential to not only mark the start of a new chapter for the FBI, but also create a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity for a majority African American community,” the Maryland leaders said.

At the Virginia delegation's March 9 meeting with the GSA, Washington cited several ways that GMU would benefit the FBI if it moved its headquarters from D.C. to Springfield, including:

• Three campuses near the proposed Springfield site and FBI Academy in Quantico.
• Nationally recognized academic programs that align with FBI interests, including cybersecurity; criminology, law and society; and forensic science.
• Facilities such as the Forensic Science Research and Training Laboratory on the Science and Technology Campus.
• GMU faculty and adjuncts with FBI backgrounds.
• A Clearance Ready Program that helps GMU graduates prepare to obtain security clearances.

“We will be well-structured and well-positioned to support the bureau,” Washington said.

The GSA is expected to make a final selection soon on the FBI's new headquarters among three sites: two in Prince George's County and the one in Springfield.

But at last Thursday's meeting with the GSA, Virginia officials said the GSA did not give them an exact timeline on when a decision will be made on the new headquarters site. But Warner said at the news conference: "This process — we're close to 12 years now — it's gone on way too long."

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