Anybody that knows me knew that this was coming. I tried to stay off the liberal soap box for the chapter’s first month, but it proved impossible after listening to Trump’s nominee for the position of Secretary of Education.
For all those who haven’t seen the video yet, which I totally recommend that you do, I will break down all of the main concerns and/or complaints I have for nominee Betsy DeVos in an easily interpreted list format.
1. First of all, there should have never been a hearing in the first place. The Office of Gonverment Ethics had not finished reviewing DeVos’s ethics and financial disclosures at the time of the hearing. Therefore, we are still not 100% certain she is even allowed to take up the position due to the fact that she has not been cleared for any potential conflicts of interest.
2. The U.S. Department of Education describes the Secretary of Education’s duties as “responsible for the overall direction, supervision, and coordination of all activities of the Department and is the principal adviser to the President on Federal policies, programs and activities related to education in the United States.“ Therefore, whoever fills this position will have extreme authority over all schools, particularly public schools, in the United States. Given that authority, you would believe that one might find it appropriate to nominate someone who was familiar with the public school system at least a little bit.Alas, us Americans weren’t that lucky. No, we got a woman who has never attended public school, nor has she sent any of her children to public school. How can we trust someone who has never participated in the public school system to know and love it enough to protect and advocate for it? I, personally, feel like for this reason alone she should be disqualified, but if you’re still not completely convinced she’s unfit I’m sure the rest of the list will convince you.
3. Guns in schools? Surely, an unthinkable idea given the amount of mass school shootings we have had in the past few years. But maybe not so unthinkable after all? Nominee DeVos told Senator Chris Murphy, whom represented Newton, Connecticut while in the House of Representatives, that it should be a local decision to allow unauthorized individuals (e.g. not police officers) to carry guns in schools. Now I have some opinions about gun laws, but this isn’t a 2nd Amendment debate. We are talking schools, places where children are sent to learn and prosper. These are not places for guns, and this is not liberal propaganda I am feeding you, this is the law. The Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) is a federal law that prohibits unauthorized individuals from knowingly possessing a firearm in a place that the individual knows, within reasonable cause, is a school zone. Federal laws should be enforced nationwide. This is not a local matter, this is not an education matter, this is a country safety matter.
4. When questioned by Senator Patty Murray, DeVos failed to confirm that she would not privatize public schools nor cut funding from public education. Instead she stated that, “Not all schools are working for the students,” and that she hopes she can work with Sen. Murray to find ways to, “empower parents to make choices on behalf of their children that are right for them.” Sen. Murray then responded to that by saying, ”I take that as not being willing to commit to not privatizing public schools or cutting money from education.” And I may be alone here, but I think Sen. Murray hit the nail on the head with this one.
5. I think the thing that really surprised me the most was when she didn’t commit to upholding the 2011 regulations that require more thorough investigations when sexual assaults are reported on campus. She claimed that the law would be “premature”. Furthermore, as Senator Bob Casey pointed out, DeVous has donated money to a group that sued the Department of Education over the 2011 standards, saying that it denied the accused their due process. However, the only true denial I see here is DeVos’s with the facts. Among undergradute women over 23% of them will experience rape or sexual assault while at college, and only 2-8% of reported rape allegations are proven false. That being said, cases that are dismissed due to a ‘lack of evidence’ are not considered false allegations; therefore, hypothetically, the rate of falsely reported rapes could be much higher than 2-8 %. However, even with that caveat considered, I still believe that the Secretary of Education should vouch for the more thorough laws when it comes to sexual assault on college campuses.