Tag Archives: Betsy DeVos

DeVos Guts Rights Guidelines For Disabled Students

The Washington Post reports: The Education Department has rescinded 72 policy documents that outline the rights of students with disabilities as part of the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate regulations it deems superfluous. The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services wrote in a newsletter Friday that it had “a total of 72 guidance documents that have been rescinded due …

Read More »

Betsy DeVos Sued Over Title IX Sexual Assault Rules

The Associated Press reports: A national women’s rights group and three Massachusetts women filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging the U.S. Education Department’s new guidance on investigating campus sexual assaults. The Los Angeles-based Equal Means Equal and the three women, who have separately accused their colleges of mishandling complaints of sexual assault, say the new guidance is discriminatory and violates state …

Read More »

Betsy DeVos Rescinds Obama-Era Campus Rape Rules

The New York Times reports: Reversing a key part of government policy on campus sexual assault, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Friday issued new temporary rules that could give accused students greater protection against campus rape and sexual misconduct claims. Ms. DeVos said that colleges may now use a higher standard of evidence before finding students responsible for sexual assault, …

Read More »

Ed Sec. Betsy DeVos Announces Rollback Of Obama-Era Title IX Guidance On Sexual Assault And Harassment

USA Today reports: Saying the Obama administration “weaponized” the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights to work against students and schools, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday said she would replace the current approach to addressing sexual misconduct on college campuses with “a workable, effective and fair system” that more explicitly takes into account the rights of the …

Read More »

Critics Blast New York Times Over Blackwater Founder Erik Prince’s Op-Ed Arguing For More US Mercenaries

Slate reports: Erik Prince is a former Navy SEAL who founded the “security contractor” Blackwater in 1997 and acted as its CEO until 2009. Blackwater was heavily involved in the Iraq War, and in September 2007, Blackwater employees shot and killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in what numerous witnesses—including some Blackwater whistleblowers—described as the grotesque, unprovoked massacre of …

Read More »

Trump’s Cabinet Attends Weekly Bible Study

Pat Robertson’s CBN News reports: A spiritual awakening is underway at the White House. Some of the most powerful people in America have been gathering weekly to learn more about God’s Word, and this Trump Cabinet Bible study is making history. They’ve been called the most evangelical Cabinet in history – men and women who don’t mince words when it …

Read More »

DENVER: Hundreds Protest Education Sec. Betsy DeVos Ahead Of Speech To Far-Right Legislative Lobby Group

The Denver Post reports: Hundreds of people gathered at the Colorado statehouse Wednesday morning in protest of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her Denver speech Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council. “This needs to make a statement,” said Suzanne Ethredge, president of the Pueblo Education Association, a teachers union. Ethredge drove up from Pueblo with …

Read More »

National Teachers Union Leader: We Won’t Work With Betsy Devos, “The Queen Of For-Profit Privatization”

The Chicago Tribune reports: The president of the country’s largest labor union, Lily Eskelsen García of the National Education Association, told delegates at her organization’s annual gathering that they would not work with the Trump administration because the president and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos could not be trusted to do what is in the best interests of children. Eskelsen García …

Read More »

Secretary Betsy DeVos “Refuses To Affirm” That LGBT Students Will Be Protected From Discrimination [VIDEO]

Mic.com reports: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) slammed Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Tuesday when she “refused to affirm” that her department would protect students from discrimination in her testimony before the Senate. “I think that’s very important for the public to know that today, the secretary of education, before this committee, refused to affirm that she would put forward a …

Read More »

Betsy DeVos Withers And Squirms When Asked If She’d Send Her Own Kids To Failing Charter School [VIDEO]

Raw Story reports: President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos appeared on Wednesday before a House appropriations subcommittee to testify on behalf on Trump’s new budget proposal, which makes drastic cuts to public education funding and diverts “critical resources” to for-profit and religious charter schools. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) asked DeVos if she would consider sending her own children …

Read More »

FLORIDA: Students Boo Loudly And Turn Their Backs On Betsy DeVos During Speech At Black College [VIDEO]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was loudly booed by the students at Florida’s historically black Bethune-Cookman College today as she attempted to deliver the commencement address. The Washington Post reports: Many students and alumni had objected to having DeVos as speaker in part because they said the outreach by President Trump and the education secretary to historically black colleges is an …

Read More »

Blackwater Founder Held Secret Meeting To Establish Line Of Communication Between Putin And Trump

Whoa. The Washington Post reports: The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. The meeting took place around Jan. …

Read More »

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Meets With LGBT Rights Groups Over Transgender Student Rights

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos today met with three LGBT rights groups to discuss the Trump administration’s revocation of Obama’s guidelines on transgender student protections. Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: Stephanie White, executive director of Equality Michigan, said her organization sought out the meeting to convey the “profound negative consequences” of the withdrawal of the guidance protecting transgender students. …

Read More »

Log Cabin Republicans Beg DeVos And Sessions To Reinstate Obama’s Protections For Trans Students

The Log Cabin Republicans have published an open letter to Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions. An excerpt: Secretary DeVos and Attorney General Sessions, As transgender members of the Log Cabin Republicans and Republican parents of transgender students, we have deep concerns about your decision to rescind the May 13, 2016 directive entitled “Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students” pertaining to …

Read More »

Betsy DeVos Spawns Outrage With Claim That Black Universities Prove Success Of School Choice

ABC News reports: Angry social media users flew into an uproar Monday evening after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued a statement that some said ignored the context under which historically black universities were created. The statement called historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) “real pioneers when it comes to school choice,” and came shortly after President Donald Trump held a …

Read More »

Betsy DeVos At CPAC: Obama’s Trans Protections Were “Very Huge Example” Of Federal Overreach [VIDEO]

The Hill reports: New Education Secretary Betsy DeVos defended the Trump administration’s decision to rescind protections for transgender students, arguing that the protections were an “overreach” of the Obama administration. “This issue was a very huge example of the Obama administration’s overreach, to suggest one-size-fits-all, federal government approach,” DeVos said on Thursday at the conservative conference CPAC. DeVos was initially …

Read More »

BREAKING: Trump Rescinds Transgender Student Rights

The New York Times reports: President Trump rescinded protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms of their gender identity, overruling his own education secretary and placing his administration firmly in the middle of the culture wars that many Republicans have tried to leave behind. In a joint letter, the top civil rights officials from the Justice …

Read More »

LEAKED: Draft Document Lays Out Reasoning For Trump Administration To Rescind Trans Student Rights

Law Newz reports: There is now a draft copy of a document circulating that shows the potential Trump administration reasoning for backing off the Obama policy regarding transgender bathroom use. The Obama administration’s contends that Title IX prohibits the discrimination on the “basis of sex” to include a requirement that facilities provide people access to bathrooms based on the sex …

Read More »

REPORT: Trump Backed Jeff Sessions On Rescinding Trans Student Protections After Betsy DeVos Objected

The New York Times reports: A fight over a draft order that would rescind protections for transgender students in public schools has erupted inside the Trump administration, pitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions against the secretary of education, Betsy DeVos. Ms. DeVos initially resisted signing off on the order and told President Trump that she was uncomfortable with it, according to …

Read More »

Sean Spicer: Trump Believes That Transgender Student Rights Should Be Left Up To The States [VIDEO]

Politico reports: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that the Trump administration will be issuing “further guidance” on a former Obama directive aimed at protecting the rights of transgender students. “The president has maintained for a long time that this is a states’ rights issue and not one for the federal government,” Spicer said. “So while we have …

Read More »