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Pushing the Leftist Agenda by Attacking Betsy DeVos – Again
Betsy DeVos is once more in the sights of the House Democrats—and it’s going to get uglier with Democrats controlling the House. I’ve written about Secretary DeVos in the past, and because there is so much at stake with the state of education in the U.S., I’ve no doubt that the Democrats will do everything in their power to discredit her, remove her, and try to re-instate the biased and ineffective Obama administration and Leftist policies. This post will review some of the attacks on DeVos and the Department of Education, and why it is such a serious matter for this country, for education and for the rule of law.
The accusations against DeVos are many, including accusations of conflicts of interest of her staff, attacks on her brother, attacks on her expenses, and attacks on her motives. The two most important issues, I believe, are her revisions to the Title IX requirements and criticisms of the Department regarding student loan management. I’m not addressing conflicts of interest, because although the current brouhaha includes this criticism, most of the allegations that I could find are nearly two years old; I assume they didn’t rise to the level of removing her, or they were resolved. These accusations were likely just another attempt to discredit a Trump cabinet member.
In her efforts regarding Title IX to ensure that both the accused perpetrator and victim are fairly protected, DeVos issued new guidelines for formal complaints.
America’s students deserve to attend school focused on learning, with nothing limiting them from reaching their unique potential and preparing to lead successful lives. No student should have their education unfairly derailed.
That’s why there must be no tolerance for sexual harassment or assault in America’s schools — or anywhere else in the country, for that matter. And there should also be no tolerance for adjudicating these matters in a way that denies to any person access to the core principles that underpin our justice system, such as due process.
The federal civil rights law known as Title IX protects every student’s right to educational opportunities free from sex-based discrimination. Since assuming my role as secretary of education, I have met with survivors of sexual assault, accused students and school administrators. I have heard consistently that we can and must do better — and that we can and must support survivors and ensure fair grievance processes.
For a description of Title IX, go here.
She also made this statement:
Our proposed framework supports survivors while safeguarding due process, helping make Title IX protections against sex discrimination a reality for all students. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how people can object to procedures premised on the foundational concept of due process, or how anybody could have confidence in a system that lacks such protections.
But we already know how the Left feels about due process after witnessing the Kavanaugh debacle:
Sejal Singh with the advocacy group Know Your IX, which refers to a federal anti-discrimination law, said the Senate testimony should compel DeVos to boost protections for the victims of sexual harassment, not the perpetrators.
‘Betsy DeVos should consider how to interrupt sexual violence when the people who commit it are in school and before they are nominated to the Supreme Court,’ Singh said.
He couldn’t resist taking a shot at Justice Kavanaugh. In other words, due process has no role in these investigations, women need more protection, and the young men are assumed to be guilty.
Given the chance to update and improve their criteria, most schools stayed with the Obama guidelines. Now new proposed legislation has been issued, with this statement:
It is our goal with this proposed rule to ensure that Title IX grievance proceedings become more transparent, consistent, and reliable in their processes and outcomes. Far too many students have been forced to go to court to ensure their rights are protected because the Department has not set out legally binding rules that hold schools accountable for responding to allegations of sexual harassment in a supportive, fair manner. By following proper legal procedures and receiving input on our proposed rule, we will ultimately have a final regulation that ensures that Title IX protects all students.
That’s where this country stands in the implementation of Title IX: the women are victims and the men are automatically guilty.
The other hotly contested issue is an investigation of a large student loan servicing company:
Today, the Associated Press published an explosive report, detailing how the Department of Education under Sec. Betsy DeVos may have withheld from the public an audit that showed Navient, ‘one of the nation’s largest student loan servicing companies, may have driven tens of thousands of borrowers struggling with their debts into higher-cost repayment plans.’ Citing the shocking story, consumer advocacy organization Allied Progress called on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and House Education and Workforce Committee to open immediate oversight investigations into the apparent negligence and complicity of Sec. DeVos and other Department of Education officials.
(Words are italicized by me.)
Please note how the publication defines itself on its website:
Founded in 2015, Allied Progress is a consumer watchdog organization that uses hard-hitting research and creative campaigns to hold Wall Street special interests and their allies in Congress and the White House accountable.
But let’s look at the facts.
First, several states claimed that the Department was withholding the report:
The Department of Education said withholding the report was intentional, repeating the argument it has made in court and in public that only it has jurisdiction over student loan servicing issues, through its Federal Student Aid division, or FSA, which oversees student loans.
‘FSA performed the review as part of its own contract oversight, not for the benefit of other agencies,’ said Liz Hill, a Department of Education spokeswoman.
The education department’s Federal Student Aid division decided to do a review of Navient’s forbearance practices after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed its lawsuit against the company in January 2017, department spokeswoman Hill said, to see if there were any compliance issues.
She said DoE officials came to the conclusion that Navient was not improperly steering borrowers: “Nothing in the report indicates forbearances were applied inappropriately — the observations noted focused on suggested improvements regarding how to best counsel a small minority of borrowers.”
Elizabeth Warren believes that Betsy DeVos is such a threat that she has set up an oversight website and has produced a report on their findings:
The 17-page report finds that Secretary DeVos’s major actions during her first year in charge of the U.S. Department of Education has been a boon for for-profit colleges, student loan companies, and advocates of school privatization at the expense of America’s K12 and college students. The report reveals that Secretary DeVos’s actions have raised serious ethical questions, prioritized for-profit colleges over student borrowers, weakened traditional public education in favor of non-public schools, and reversed civil rights protections for students.
We can always count on Senator Warren to protect the unions and teachers.
I am one of the first to say that I wish we could eliminate the Department of Education. But I don’t see that happening any time soon. Betsy DeVos is on the battlefront of trying to hold back the influence of the Left that goes beyond these obvious issues identified here: gender issues, rule of law, due process, school curriculum, educator bias, school choice, and many other concerns.
It’s up to you to evaluate the reasons for these attacks on Secretary DeVos: is she determined to introduce fairness into the schools and for the students? Or is she a threat to the Left in its ongoing efforts to support the unions, teachers and educate students?
My greatest concern is that if Betsy DeVos and her ideas are eliminated, the Right will lose even more of its influence in stopping the control and indoctrination of our students and our schools. Who knows when we’ll have another chance, at this level?
This is a battle we must win.
Published in Education
The education industry is as Leftist as it gets in this country. There will be no pleasing them. My fear is that After Trump (a new time epoch) there will be an unbridled rush of Leftist policies. The education department will go from brainwashing to full-on social engineering. If you have seen AOC’s Green New Deal, you have realized that any policy vehicle is a opportunity to push: wage controls, racial quotas, and employment guarantees.
She takes so much flak, Devos must be an important conservative asset.
At the very least, @dong, we need to keep them from getting additional footholds. You are correct.
She’s getting things done in spite of them, so they are very worried and have to condemn her. Nothing new here, but we have to make it difficult for them, @rodin.
Betsy DeVos is doing what she does because she actually believes in her cause. She doesn’t have to put up the grief that she puts up with. She’s a wealthy woman who could be doing something else BUT she (like most of us) know that education in this country is an absolute mess. Most public education is indoctrination at best and pure anarchy at worst . Most kids coming out of school don’t understand civics, American history, or even basic economics. What are we spending our money on? Sex Ed.
In my radical opinion, ALL education in this country needs to be tossed in the dustbin and started from scratch.
Works for me! Maybe Ms. DeVos could use your help, @matede! I agree with all you say.
I think that Ms DeVos cannot singlehandedly correct the course of the degraded US education system. And I think quite radical changes will come in response to the dreadful situations parents see their children in. (Dustbin territory) With luck and support and a full presidential term, DeVos may be able to make some changes in important policy areas – like Title IX enforcement – that buy enough time for more – maybe enough – parents to decline to put their children at risk by putting them into the so-called public education system. She may be able to expand the choice/voucher systems at the state level to help young children. And parents may draw the line on paying for credentials from colleges which don’t result in knowledge that someone will pay their child to have, and will increasingly seek and take advantage of useful and cost effective alternatives. But I think it will take at least a generation (longer?) for the unbelievably damaging “diversity” ideology to be expunged from intellectual and educational environments – and then only after many are hurt by pretending those who can’t (or haven’t yet) can. And if DeVos can help make sure teachers’ unions abide by Janus, they will have to look elsewhere for money to pass around to Democrat candidates.
One of the attacks on Devos from the Left from her nomination forward which I’ve found silly is that she “…is unqualified to be Secretary of Education” mainly because she was never a teacher or a school administrator. Here’s one such accusation from 2016. It’s silly as all H-E-L-L when you think about it. The Department of Defense is much more useful (and necessary) to our nation but there’s no requirement that the Secretary of Defense be a military academy grad or have even served in the armed forces. Likewise, the Secretary of State is not required to have been a Foreign Service Officer or to even know any foreign languages. Arne Duncan, Obama’s Education Secretary, was a career school administrator and he did great damage in that role in many areas, but especially with that “Dear Colleague” letter to universities.
Well said, @eodmom. It will be a long term process and I hope DeVos and her staff will give us a strong start.
@tigerlily, I haven’t heard that criticism in a while. Maybe someone figured out what a foolish argument it was. Or not.
A lawsuit filed in Jan. 2017 is presumably meant to address issues which occurred prior to the filing of the lawsuit, which would pre-date both DeVos’ appointment and Trump’s inauguration. How exactly is this her problem?
If only we had some individual like Betsy Devos running the educational system here in California. (Sigh.)
Well, now you’re being logical and reasonable, @dorrk. They don’t have to be either one.
I grew up in that system, @caroljoy, right through college. I can’t even recognize the system now. So sorry.
My greatest hope with DeVos is that she would remove federal control of education. In the four-plus decades its existed, the Depart of Education is almost the swampiest of the swamps there. The Left is fighting tooth and nail to keep it as is. They like it this way and DeVos represents the change they only pay lip service to.
If a groper or God forbid, a rapist, were not a student at the same university, the matter would immediately be referred to the police. Once in the legal system, all the normal protections kick in, such as the presumption of innocence.
But when an accusation involves a male student at the same university, the #metoo philosophy and Obama-era presumption-of-guilt “guidelines” kick in, and the school takes what could be a criminal matter for the authorities and turns it into an internal matter. A real female victim and a truly innocent male deserve better than “university justice”.
Yes, we must have DeVos’ back covered . . .
Rapists and University representatives prefer that rape victims avoid talking to the police.
Elizabeth Warren believes that Betsy DeVos is such a threat that she has set up an oversight website and has produced a report on their findings:
People who have a case don’t speak of ‘raised serious ethical questions’, they make substantive legal accusations.
The Federalist has an article describing the ACLU’s attack on the campus reforms. No longer a defender of civil rights, are they . . .
Betsey DeVos is a critical asset in revamping our education system. The best thing she can do to improve education in the US is shut down the entire department and send all responsibility in education back to the states.
I’m with you, @kimpriestap Except if you think the attacks from the Left are nasty now, just wait . . .
But then you have this. Perdue is owned by the teacher’s unions.
I have to believe DeVos knew this, @hangon. Have you some thoughts on what her motivation might have been to select Perdue? Strictly political?
I don’t think the feds can send responsibility to the states. That implies the feds would still control it. The feds can relinquish authority, though, and let the states take it up. The best way to do this is through the federal budget process, which I think got approximately zero attention on Ricochet in the latest round.
No clue. It’s just when I saw it and the post Perdue was appointed to, my jaw dropped. Education is all about standards. Dumb them down (as Perdue will do) and educational levels will fall as well.
It’s amazing how Elizabeth Warren and friends manage to convince people that they’re protecting students from greedy “for profit” colleges who are ripping their students off.
Meanwhile, Harvard University (one of Warren’s top donors) is a “non-profit” institution, who receives tax benefits from the US Government since their purpose is to promote social welfare, not make money…So Elizabeth Warren’s oversight project is not concerned with Harvard doing things like: