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demmiblue

(36,865 posts)
Sat Apr 15, 2017, 12:53 PM Apr 2017

Betsy Devos Pick to Head Civil Rights Office Once Complained About Anti-White Discrimination

Source: The Mary Sue



Betsy Devos has appointed Candice E. Jackson, an attorney and author, as the acting head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Jackson, who was officially appointed as deputy assistant secretary, will only serve as acting head until Devos nominates an official assistant secretary, a role that requires Senate confirmation. However, Jackson’s views are still a troubling sign of Devos’ priorities.

Jackson is not particularly high-profile in the policy world, with limited experience in civil rights law (surprise, surprise). Her most recent high-profile action was bringing Bill Clinton’s accusers to a presidential debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton. However, ProPublica has recently published some of her quotes, and…she’s argued against both feminism and affirmative action, and called the women who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault and harassment “fake victims.” Given that her office is entrusted with enforcing Title IX and civil rights law in educational institutions, these views are very troubling.

While an undergraduate at Stanford, Jackson wrote for the conservative Stanford Review, founded by Peter Thiel. After discovering that a section of her calculus class which “provided students with extra help on challenging problems” was reserved for minority students, she wrote, “I am especially disappointed that the University encourages these and other discriminatory programs. We need to allow each person to define his or her own achievements instead of assuming competence or incompetence based on race.”

...

However, she has also doubled down on a lot of her conservative views. She worked for the conservative legal group Judicial Watch and praised a professor who called the 1964 Civil Rights Act “monstrous.” In that same 2005 book about Bill Clinton’s victims, she criticized existing sexual harassment laws for causing men to “self-censor themselves to avoid being accused of sexual harassment” and ignoring “the reality that unwanted sexual advances are difficult to define.” After a number of women accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment and assault, she wrote on Facebook that they were “frankly, fake victims” who lied for “political gain.” Given her vocal support for Bill Clinton’s accusers, this was a disturbing about-face.


More: https://www.themarysue.com/betsy-devos-civil-rights-reverse-racism/

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