The New York Times uses “diversity” to find common ground with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos
By
Nancy Hanover
7 June 2017
In a news article on Friday, June 2, the New York Times makes the jarring claim that US Secretary Betsy DeVos’ appointees are a “stark departure from her reputation.”
The leading publication of the liberal establishment suggests that the common perception that DeVos is “an out-of-touch, evangelical billionaire without the desire or capacity to protect vulnerable poor, black, immigrant, gay or transgender students” needs to be re-thought.
The article does not trouble itself to comment, even in a superficial way, on DeVos’ lifelong commitment to the destruction of public education, her promotion and protection of the charter and cybercharter industry, or her pledge to enact Trump’s $20 billion school voucher plan. No mention is made of her support to the Acton Institute, which has advocated child labor, her hostility to the rights of special education children or her oft-stated belief that education is more properly administered by the church than under public education and secular laws.
No, it is not because of policy issues that writer Erica L. Green and the Times suddenly seem to find DeVos “in touch.” Instead, it has come to their attention that DeVos has hired a “sexual assault survivor” and gay woman, a “progressive Democrat who believes a broken education system is a form of white supremacy” and a second-generation Cuban man. Green draws the lesson that DeVos critics should hereafter “focus more on her actions than their preconceptions.”
The Times cites Michael J. Petrilli, the president of the pro-charter think tank Thomas B. Fordham Institute [funded by school…