A Republican effort to topple George Mason University’s first Black president is headed toward a showdown on Friday at a meeting of the school’s governing board.

The president, Gregory Washington, has been under attack from the Trump administration for supporting diversity efforts at George Mason, Virginia’s largest university. The federal government opened several investigations over the last month to examine the university’s approach to diversity and its response to antisemitism.

His problems are not coming from only President Trump.

The state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, has packed the boards that oversee the state’s public universities with right-leaning allies who are hostile to diversity efforts, including George Mason’s.

Recently, boards have forced the departures of Jim Ryan, the president of the University of Virginia, and Cedric T. Wins, the superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, a public military college. Both men had come under fire from Republicans for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion programs at their schools.

Dr. Washington’s conservative critics have pointed to his years-old efforts to emphasize diversity, at a time when it was a priority for a broad swath of universities and other American institutions. In a letter to Dr. Washington on Tuesday, Representative Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Representative Chip Roy pointed to Dr. Washington’s past plans to “advance systemic and cultural anti-racism” and to create a task force on “anti-racism and inclusive excellence.”

George Mason and its president are something of an odd target, however.

The university is a vibrant center of conservative thought. It is home to the Antonin Scalia Law School, named after the Supreme Court justice who was a staunch conservative. It has also promoted its intellectual diversity, a conservative priority. Unlike the elite institutions that the Trump administration has typically targeted, like Harvard University, George Mason is the type of accessible and affordable college that has usually received broad political support.