Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a heartless woman who wants to shut down the Special Olympics. At least, that’s the Left’s latest baseless attack on her.
How did DeVos earn their ire this time? The recently-released Department of Education budget would cut $18 million in federal funding for the Special Olympics. Yet, DeVos said she “loves its work” and personally donates part of her salary to the cause. All she really did was suggest that federal funding is superfluous for an organization that already receives millions in private donations every year.
For this, many prominent liberal politicians and pundits decided that the secretary had to burn. Upstart Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., blasted the cut in funding (which has since been reversed) as just another part of DeVos’ “anti-everybody platform,” and Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., lambasted the secretary’s position as “cruel” and “outrageous.” Meanwhile, a CNN reporter badgered DeVos relentlessly as she waited for an elevator, and anchor Anderson Cooper mocked her on-air.
This wildly personal overreaction shouldn’t surprise anyone. DeVos is the Trump administration official Democrats love to hate, but she really shouldn’t be. In fact, Devos has done a lot for students so far.
That’s certainly not what Democrats told us to expect, as their histrionics started the very moment President Trump announced the secretary’s nomination. The New York Times put out a scathing editorial calling DeVos “clearly unfit” and begging for “one Republican with integrity” to “rescue” the nation from her supposedly apocalyptic appointment.
Yet, their concerns were unfounded: DeVos has fought for essential reforms to higher education policy and promoted school choice programs that put students first.
Her higher education proposals have created the most controversy, but DeVos chose to weather the storm and do what’s right for students. When the secretary rolled out a proposal to reform Title IX and protect due process during campus sexual assault proceedings, she was accused of “protecting sexual assaulters” and “treating rape survivors like garbage.”
But all DeVos actually did was stand up for the principles of due process that this nation was founded upon. Her reforms rescinded the Obama administration’s obviously egregious recommendation that schools only use a roughly 51% standard of certainty before finding students guilty of assault. Additionally, DeVos sought additional due process reforms, like requiring that universities allow students to cross-examine their accusers, to ensure that claims of serious crimes were thoroughly scrutinized for truthfulness.
Still, the secretary took great care to acknowledge the importance of achieving justice for rape victims. She met with countless survivors and advocacy groups, and, in her statement announcing the reforms, went on the record with her commitment to justice. “Every survivor of sexual violence must be taken seriously,” DeVos said, adding that “we must condemn sexual violence and punish those who perpetrate it.”
This isn’t the only area within higher education where the secretary has pushed for change. She has profusely advocated for oft-imperiled free speech rights on campus, and promoted much needed alternative education pathways like job training and vocational schooling.
DeVos deserves praise, not the Left’s condemnation, for her approach to higher education reform.
DeVos also boasts a stellar record on school choice. For example, the latest Department of Education budget would create $5 billion a year in Education Freedom Scholarships that could be used to help families afford private education. When the GOP passed a landmark tax reform plan in 2017, DeVos fought to include a provision that allows parents and families to use tax-exempt 529-education saving plans money, previously only used for college expenses, to pay for private K-12 education as well.
Her critics’ narrative that she only cares about rich, white students just isn’t true. DeVos has met with education leaders from historically black colleges and universities, and preserved funding for HBCUs in the face of potential Education Department budget cuts across the board. The secretary has also fought for anti-bullying protections for LGBT kids, and the school choice programs she supports overwhelmingly benefit minority and disadvantaged students.
DeVos has done plenty that even the most ardent Democrats should support, they’re just too blinded by partisanship to see it.
A New York Times reader poll emphatically declared her the “Worst Trump Cabinet Member” in 2017, laying the Left’s blind hatred for the secretary bare. But maybe if liberal voters could set their partisan blinders aside, they’d see that Devos has actually done a pretty good job.
Brad Polumbo (@brad_polumbo) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner. He is an assistant editor for Young Voices and a student at UMass Amherst.
