Education Secretary Betsy DeVos needs to be taken more seriously. After all, she has done a great job serving as a tool of the white supremacist patriarchy where only only rich white men have full rights.
DeVos’ work has been under the radar far too often. Rolling back protections for young people during such vital formative years will have an impact that will last a lifetime.
People like Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Education Committee, are shining a light on the damage DeVos is poised to keep doing. With the leak of DeVos’ proposed changes to educational regulations around Title IX, Sen. Murray pointed out how survivors, birth control users, single parents, and LGBTQ students would be especially at risk.
In a letter to Secretary DeVos, Sen. Murray urges the Education Department to postpone implementing its changes to gender equity law Title IX. Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire co-signed the letter.
In practice, the draft regulation envisions a system of unaccountable and secret institutions where civil rights protections can be disregarded -- where an unmarried mother may be denied admission, where a young woman could be thrown out for using birth control, and where a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender student could be subjected to cruel punishment at the school. Without question, this scheme will lead to unnecessary discrimination against students based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, and marital status.
Secretary DeVos pushed back with the usual vague assertions that what is being said is “completely false”—but providing no actual evidence or details to prove it.
It’s funny that DeVos talks about sowing “fear and falsehood” because that’s exactly what she’s been doing to defend her unpopular changes to Title IX guidelines. Sounds like classic projection, doesn’t it?
Read about the damning report showing how Betsy DeVos willingly ignored widespread public support of Title IX.