Washington
DeVos, a Michigan billionaire, repeatedly told skeptical senators that she looked forward to working with them to improve the nation’s schools.
But she sidestepped several issues important to Democrats and their allies: She declined to commit that she would not work to privatize the nation’s public schools, called Sen. Bernie Sanders’ ideas about free college tuition “interesting,” and said she could not promise to uphold the Obama administration’s guidance to K-12 schools and colleges on handling allegations of campus sexual violence.
“It would be premature” to make such a commitment, DeVos said in response to a question from Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa.
The Obama administration’s guidance on sexual assault, issued in 2011, was a turning point in the national conversation about such violence and pushed campus officials to more aggressively investigate incidents and protect survivors’ rights.
But the guidance, which directed schools to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard in sexual assault investigations, has drawn backlash from some colleges and politicians who argue that it violates the rights of those accused of assault.
“Assault in any form is never OK. I just want to be very clear on that,” DeVos said on Tuesday. “If confirmed, I look forward to understanding the past actions and current situation better, and to ensuring that the intent of the law is actually carried out in a way that recognizes both the victim … as well as those who are accused.”
DeVos is an unusually polarizing nominee to helm the Education Department. She has lobbied for decades to expand charter schools and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and religious schools, but she has no professional experience in public schools and has not held public office.
In his introduction of DeVos at Tuesday’s hearing, Joe Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, argued that her status as an outsider is an asset.
“She doesn’t come from within the education establishment. But honestly, I believe that today that’s one of the most important qualifications you could have for this job,” the former senator from Connecticut said. “We need a change agent.”
GOP senators cheered DeVos’ nomination, saying they hoped that she would champion alternatives to the nation’s public schools and scale back the federal footprint in K-12 education.
“Betsy DeVos, in my opinion, is on our children’s side,” Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in his opening remarks on Tuesday. “She’s devoted her life to helping mainly low-income children have access to better schools.”
Alexander dismissed DeVos’ critics as out of step with public opinion, arguing that charter schools have been embraced by Democrats, including President Obama, and that vouchers are patterned on “the most successful social policy this Congress has ever enacted — the GI Bill,” which provides tuition assistance for veterans to attend the college of their choice.
“Why is such a great idea for colleges deemed to be such a dangerous idea for K-12 schools?” Alexander said.
He said he would restrict senators to one five-minute round of questions for DeVos, which dismayed Democrats, who said they needed more time to examine DeVos’ record.
“I think we’re selling our kids short by not being able to ask follow up questions,” said Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.
The hearing went forward on Tuesday evening over the objections of Democrats, who are concerned that the Office of Government Ethics — which is responsible for vetting presidential nominees for potential conflicts of interest — has not finished its review of DeVos’ vast wealth and financial investments.
Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the HELP committee, said she is “extremely disappointed” that Republicans insisted on having the hearing before the ethics review was done. Murray said she wants DeVos to explain how she would handle potential conflicts of interest, given her “extensive financial entanglements.”
Murray told DeVos that she has “major concerns about how you spent your career and your fortune fighting to privatize public education,” and is concerned about DeVos’s contributions to groups that “want to impose anti-LGBT or anti-women’s health beliefs on public schools and the students in them.”
DeVos promised to resolve any conflicts of interest identified by the ethics office. “I will not be conflicted, period,” she said. “I commit that to you all.”
She said that if confirmed, she will be a “strong advocate for great public schools.”
But when public schools are “troubled, or unsafe, or not a good fit for a child,” she said, parents should have a “right to enroll their child in a high-quality alternative.”
“I share President-elect Trump’s view that it’s time to shift the debate from what the system thinks is best for kids to what moms and dads want, expect and deserve,” she said.