In 2017, Donald Trump appointed Rick Perry—a man who famously couldn’t name the Energy Department at a 2012 presidential debate—as his energy secretary. Keeping alive old traditions of appointing people who disdain or know nothing about a department to then run that department, Trump appointed former WWE executive Linda McMahon to run the Education Department, which Trump himself called “a big con job” that he hopes to disassemble and scrap for parts like an old car. On Monday, the Senate confirmed McMahon—who testified in February that key responsibilities of the department should be reallocated to other departments—by a 51-45 vote across party lines. By Monday night, McMahon sent her first email to Education Department staff, a cartoonishly ominous screed pledging to unilaterally “send education back to the states.” In the email, obtained by Zeteo News, she writes that they will undertake “the historic overhaul of a federal agency” and that this is “our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.”
In the same email, she rails against “DEI,” vows to strengthen “parental rights,” which is just jargon for attacking curriculum that teaches about race or LGBTQ identity, as well as “school choice”—also jargon for privatizing education and defunding public schools. Lovely!
Trump’s first speech as president stressed the importance of a fully “merit-based society,” yet, impressively, McMahon has no background in education. Ah, pardon me! She served for one year on the Connecticut State Board of Education in 2009… only to be removed when a local newspaper reported that she’d lied about having an education degree. (Nonetheless, McMahon touts her year on the board in her Monday email to staffers—pretty shameless, IMO.) She’s since served on the board of the private Catholic school, Sacred Heart University, unsuccessfully ran twice for U.S. Senate in 2010 and 2012, worked in the Small Business Administration in the first Trump administration, and later worked in Trump’s super PAC, America First Action.
But the most notable bullet point on McMahon’s flimsy resume is her tenure as CEO and president of WWE from 1980 to 2009. In October, about a month before Trump won and nominated McMahon, attorneys for five former WWE employees filed a lawsuit alleging systematic sexual abuse that the employees, then underage teen boys, endured while working as “ring boys” in the 1980s and 1990s. The lawsuit claims WWE officials including McMahon and her then-husband knew about this abuse and took no action. Attorneys for McMahon responded at the time by claiming the lawsuit was “filled with scurrilous lies.”
During McMahon’s confirmation hearings last month, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) raised the lawsuit, stating, “I am so concerned about whether sexual assault survivors on campus can trust you to support them.” (About one in four female college students in the U.S. report experiencing sexual assault.) McMahon responded by bringing up her college-age grandchildren and promising senators she’ll ensure student survivors and their alleged assailants “are treated fairly on both sides.” Tellingly, of course, McMahon didn’t even seem to know Trump’s Title IX policies from his first term. As she and Baldwin went back and forth, McMahon erroneously claimed universities were required to investigate off-campus sexual assaults under the now-reinstated policies of Trump’s first term—that just isn’t true. But don’t worry, McMahon is a grandmother, so what does it matter that she doesn’t know anything about basic policies?
In February, Trump directed his Education Department to reinstate the Title IX policies from his first term, which attacked the rights of campus sexual assault survivors. These rules strengthen protections for students accused of sexual misconduct and reduce the liability placed on schools to respond to misconduct. Further, Trump’s guidelines require schools to hold in-person hearings for accused students to cross-examine their accusers—a highly traumatic ordeal for survivors. Trump’s Title IX policies also revoke protections against discrimination for trans students, at a time of rising attacks.
In a statement shared with Jezebel, Emma Grasso Levine, senior manager of Title IX policy and programs at the campus survivor justice organization Know Your IX, pointed to McMahon’s ignorance as particularly alarming. “McMahon’s responses to Senate questioning demonstrate she has no understanding of the harmful, anti-survivor Title IX policies President Trump ordered the Department of Education to enforce,” Grasso Levine said. “Her promises to protect students from all forms of harassment ring hollow–both because of her demonstrated lack of knowledge of the Trump Administration’s far more stringent standard for addressing gender-based violence on campus, and her failure to address systemic sexual abuse under her leadership of the WWE.” A letter signed by nearly 100 civil rights organizations opposing McMahon’s nomination last month also raised the “shocking and credible allegations” that “[McMahon] enabled and concealed more than a decade of child sexual abuse that she was obligated to prevent and address.”
I know an entire litter of biblically evil Trump appointees has been confirmed and you’re likely desensitized by now. But McMahon’s confirmation is distinctly awful. The Education Department is one of the biggest agencies in the federal government and currently holds more than $1.5 trillion in federal student loans from 43 million borrowers. The department’s civil rights and disability guidance as well as its policies overseeing campus sexual violence effectively decide who can and can’t receive an education in this country.
Even before McMahon’s confirmation, the Trump administration in February directed schools to cut diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and some have already done so. This week, the president also threatened to defund universities that permit “illegal” student protests, following last year’s wave of pro-Palestine campus activism—one of Trump’s most chilling threats to constitutionally protected free speech yet. McMahon made clear during her hearings that she unquestioningly backs Trump’s agenda: “November proved that Americans overwhelmingly support the president’s vision, and I am ready to enact it,” she said in her opening remarks before the Senate, even as Trump won the popular vote by the smallest margin in over a century.
Ultimately, McMahon’s total lack of experience in education seems a significant factor in why Trump chose her—her empty resume reinforces this administration’s clear goal to totally eradicate the Education Department. “I know that some people feel the secretary of education should have extensive experience in a school system. However, it is important to remember that education is still mostly a state and local responsibility,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said of McMahon’s confirmation on Monday. “The job is to manage a bureaucracy who runs a number of funding programs.” In other words: No background in education is necessary to run Trump’s Education Department, because the goal is to destroy it. You don’t need experience as a teacher to run something into the ground—you just need experience running an evil business that abuses its employees, which McMahon has aplenty!
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