Linda McMahon Wrestles With Tough Question Of Whether Black History Is Even Legal Now
Why not just teach the HAPPY things about America?
WWE rasslin’ CEO Linda McMahon, Donald Trump’s pick to be the final Secretary of Education had her confirmation hearing in the Senate yesterday. She was grilled by Democrats about Trump’s plans to eradicate the entire department and liquidate it at a fire sale, and also about how some of Trump’s (illegal) executive orders might affect schools across Our Great Land.
For instance, Sen. Chris Murphy (Connecticut), who has helped lead Democratic opposition to Trump’s agenda, wanted McMahon to explain what the Great Leader’s ban on “discriminatory equity ideology” and “DEI” would mean for teaching US history. The administration has banned those terrible things, but also hasn’t defined them clearly enough for schools to know whether they’re complying with the order or not.
Enjoy the video, or at least the Chris Murphy parts of it. For extra bonus context/subtext/schadenfreude, you might want to keep in mind that in 2012, Murphy took a folding chair to McMahon in the election to replace Joe Friggin’ Lieberman in the Senate, after McMahon blew $42 million of her own money on the race. But look how nice they get along now! (You can almost see Murphy waiting to launch himself from the top rope at her, and that exhausts our fake-wrestling metaphor supply for today.)
Like many a Trump nominee, McMahon seems to have no idea what’s happening in the administration she wants to join. When Murphy asked whether it’s okay for schools in the USA can celebrate Black History Month, given that schools on military bases have eliminated the observance, McMahon answered it should be fine. She seemed completely oblivious to the recent Party Hardy Pete Hegseth order declaring it and other “identity months” dead, dead, dead.
While she was at it, she praised Martin Luther King Jr. for his definitive rejection of affirmative action in the only MLK quote Republicans are allowed to know about, because she is a walking talking cliché.
Murphy pointed out that, actually madame wannabe secretary, West Point has shut down all clubs having anything to do with ethnicity, including the Society of Black Engineers, and asked if similar groups in public schools, for, say, Vietnamese or Black students, would similarly be verboten. And if schools did permit them, would they risk losing their federal funding?
That brought the first of many dodges from McMahon, who said she couldn’t address a “hypothetical” situation, and that she would like to “fully understand what that order is and what those clubs are doing” before deciding.
Murphy replied, “That’s pretty chilling. I think schools all around the country are going to hear that.” Then, like some sort of cruel inquisitor at an inquisition, he had another question, this time about the content of schools’ curriculum, if not their character.
What about educational programming centered around specific ethnic and racial experiences? My son is in a public school. He takes a class called African American History. If you are running an African American history class, could you perhaps be in violation of this executive order?”
Oh golly, McMahon had to think about that too! She explained she’d need to “look into it further” before answering that fairly simple question.
Grudging credit where it’s due, we guess: McMahon somehow refrained from — or forgot — the bog-standard rightwing lie, now enshrined in law in most red states, that teaching about Black people in American history hurts white students by telling them that they are all oppressors who bear “historical guilt” for their ancestors’ racism. We wonder if perhaps Trump will now consider her too liberal for the job.
Still, Murphy wanted a clear answer, the monster, but he did not get it.
MURPHY: So there's a possibility — there's a possibility, you’re saying — that public schools that run African American history classes, right, this is a class that has been taught in public schools for decades, could lose federal funding if they continue to teach African American history?”
MCMAHON: “No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I would like to take a look at these programs and fully understand the breadth of the executive order and get back to you on that.”
So maybe yes, maybe no, and we guess schools will just have to be careful not to run afoul of the executive order, which isn’t a law, but could still cost them bigtime if their course offerings make America look bad by teaching history or anything else accurately. Like the song says, kids have to be carefully taught, so schools better not get uppity.
[Sen. Chris Murphy / Education Week]
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The arc of history is long and full of jabronis
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