No, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was not just being evasive because she didn’t understand the question last month when she repeatedly dodged Rep. Katherine Clark’s questions about whether she’d allow federal funds to go to private schools that discriminate against LGBT kids. In a Senate hearing Tuesday, she again refused to give a direct answer to what should be an easy question. And you know what that means: she knows her answer, and she knows it won’t go over well.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) asked DeVos about whether or not her department would continue to provide federal funding to schools that had anti-LGBTQ policies. At first she tried to dodge the question by asserting, “Schools that receive federal funds must follow federal law.” But Merkley pressed, leading DeVos to say, “In areas where the law is unsettled, this department is not going to be issuing decrees. That is a matter for Congress and the courts to settle.”
Merkley continued to grill for DeVos for clarification, but she refused to comply. “You’re refusing to answer the question,” he said. “I think that’s very important for the public to know — that today, the Secretary of Education, before this committee, refused to affirm that she would put forward a program that would ban discrimination based on the LGBTQ status of students or ban discrimination based on religion.”
Zack Ford explains the significance of DeVos’ word choice:
… her response to Merkley was particularly telling given the department rescinded the Obama administration’s guidance that interpreted the law to extend protections to transgender students. By asserting that her office will issue no new “decrees,” she was essentially promising that her office will not take any steps to try to protect LGBTQ students and will continue to reward schools that discriminate against them with federal funding.
DeVos probably loves privatizing public education dollars more than she actively hates LGBT kids—but in the end, the effect is the same.