DeVos rewrites black history
If only the Trump administration could stay out of its own way.
On a day when President Trump was looking to score much-needed points with African-Americans by surrounding himself with leaders of historically black colleges and universities, his gaffe-prone education secretary stepped all over the president’s gesture by trying to reinvent the reason those institutions were formed.
And although Betsy DeVos, less than 12 hours later, sought to correct her insensitive remarks, the episode is evidence that the education secretary needs some schooling of her own on America’s shameful legacy of racial discrimination in higher education.
No, this is not a trivial matter. And I am not nitpicking her words to further criticize the Trump administration. Getting apoplectic over Kellyanne Conway with her feet on the Oval Office couch during Trump’s meeting with the college presidents is nitpicking.
Although former President Obama was criticized just for shedding his suit jacket during his first official Oval Office meeting in 2009. Plus, how many mothers go ballistic seeing their kid’s feet on the couch in the most humble abode, let alone the White House? But I digress.
In case you haven’t heard about the DeVos debacle, here is what happened: Several black college presidents, including Andrea Lewis Miller of LeMoyne-Owen College, were in Washington last week meeting with Trump and members of Congress to push for more federal government help for their institutions.
On Monday night, DeVos issued a statement praising HBCUs. But in it, she called them the “real pioneers” of school choice. “They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.”
The statement made no mention of the fact that most HBCUs were formed because black students across the South literally had no choice. Traditionally white colleges and universities refused to accept them, no matter how brilliant they were. In some instances, public officials stood in the doorway and other people rioted in the streets to keep black students out.
DeVos excluded all of that and instead chose to use HBCUs as examples for her campaign to offer more choice in secondary schools through vouchers that allow public school students to attend private schools with taxpayer money.
Faced with heated criticism, DeVos tried to backtrack the following day during a luncheon with the HBCU leaders. “The traditional school system systemically failed to
provide African-Americans access to a quality – or, sadly, more often to any education at all,” she said in prepared remarks.
“But your history was born, not out of mere choice, but out of necessity, in the face of racism and the aftermath of the Civil War.” Black colleges, she said, “made higher education accessible to students who otherwise would have been denied the opportunity.”
Later that day, she took to Twitter with more emphatic statements rooted closer to the truth. “Providing an alternative option to students denied the right to attend a quality school is the legacy of #HBCUs,” she said. She then added, “#HBCUs remain at the forefront of opening doors that had previously been closed to so many.” And “#HBCUs are such an important piece of the fabric of American history – one that encompasses some of our nation’s greatest citizens.”
In an administration where offensive comments, mostly by the boss himself, are routinely excused and forgiven, this too shall pass. But it should not pass without an admonition — particularly to the person in charge of education — against rewriting history, even if it’s benignly done, to further a political agenda.
Five of my older siblings attended historically black colleges in Mississippi. The only choice they had was deciding which of the black schools to attend because no traditional white college in the state would admit them, despite their academic abilities.
Now, more than five decades later, that’s not sour grapes. It’s a fact that should not be ignored, diminished or reinvented. Because if we don’t acknowledge our past experiences with racism, we will likely repeat them.
Otis Sanford holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis. Contact him at 901-678-3669 or at o.sanford@memphis.edu. Follow him on Twitter @otissanford.