Some Devos hired are stark departure from her reputation
WASHINGTON — Since her confirmation as the education secretary, Betsy Devos has been the Trump Cabinet member liberals love to hate, denouncing her as an out-of-touch, evangelical billionaire without the desire or capacity to protect vulnerable poor, black, immigrant, gay or transgender students.
But while Devos has been reluctant to express sympathy for those groups, she has stacked her administration with appointees whose personal and professional backgrounds challenge the narrative that she has no interest in protecting those vulnerable students.
Among her appointees: a progressive Democrat who believes a broken education system is a form of white supremacy; a sexual assault survivor who is in a same-sex marriage; and a second-generation American who ran a federal program that helped unauthorized immigrants.
While the education secretary has done little to highlight the diversity in her administration — the department declined to make any of the appointees available for interviews — Devos watchers say that diversity should encourage critics to focus more on her actions than their preconceptions.
“It’s definitely surprising, and should make people question their assumptions about this administration,” said Michael J. Petrilli, the president of the conservative-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy think tank.
Devos’ appointment of Candice E. Jackson to the department’s Office for Civil Rights has been among the most hotly disputed. Jackson is perhaps best known for her high-profile involvement in attacks against Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign, in which she elevated women who had accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault or harassment, while denouncing women who accused Donald Trump of the same.
Jackson will oversee some of the issues the Trump administration has signaled it would step back from — such as the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, and investigations of sexual assaults on campus.
What is less known about