DeVos image Gage Skidmore
On Wednesday, while she was delivering the commencement speech at Bethune-Cookman University, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was drowned out by boos. Many of the attending graduates turned their backs as she spoke. DeVos has already drawn criticism for her strong support of school privatization and her remarks comparing the founding of historically black colleges to the current, white-led school choice movement.
Bethune-Cookman University President Edwin Jackson intervened on DeVos’s behalf: “If this behavior continues, your degrees will be mailed to you. Choose which way you want to go.”
Jackson could not have provided a better analogy for the “choices” available to students of color under the current framework of school choice. He essentially gave graduates two options: A) listen to the personification of the racist adversity that you’ve had to overcome to succeed across seventeen-plus years of schooling; or B) be booted from the ceremony that you earned through those years of work.
He essentially gave graduates two options: A) listen to the personification of the racist adversity that you’ve had to overcome to succeed; or B) be booted from the ceremony that you earned through those years of work.
The analogy goes further as Jackson—like the mayors and district administrators who push privatization schemes onto the public school systems they lead—was ultimately the one who created the conflict between DeVos and the students, since he decided, unilaterally, to invite her as a speaker without consulting the students and families who came to celebrate on graduation day.
As DeVos took the stage, she was presented with an honorary degree. The students were expected to watch with reverence as she took a shortcut to the stage. The following day, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner appeared to give the commencement address at Chicago State University, which, under his austerity agenda, has suffered along with other institutions that serve Latinx and African American students facing poverty. No school has been affected as dramatically as Chicago State University, which has produced half of the total bachelor's degrees earned by Chicago’s African American students at the state’s public universities. Dr. Eve L. Ewing, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, describes CSU’s significance as an institution on the far south side that is trying to undo the legacy of the city’s structural racism. CSU suffered through major cuts and layoffs last year and was only saved from complete destruction by the dynamic organizing of the student body and community to push a last-minute emergency funding bill through the state legislature.
As Rauner addressed Chicago State’s graduation with a short speech, he was met with boos and shouted criticism from the graduates still angry over the damage done to their school and their education.
Rauner attempted to save face with press after the fiasco. “I'd love to boo our system as well. I'm not going to boo it, I'm going to change it. We're going to make it right."
These incidents illustrate where the power and “choice” exist in systems of school choice. The students of CSU and Bethune-Cookman don’t want DeVos or Rauner to continue pursuing disastrous, paternalistic policies in a feigned effort to “make it right.” They want them to get out.
These students don’t need saving by the same racist leaders whose policy has been to exacerbate inequity, they need resources and a respect for their own agency and the power within their communities.
These students don’t need saving by the same racist leaders whose policy has been to exacerbate inequity, they need resources and a respect for their own agency and the power within their communities.
It’s important also to fully recognize the role played by the black leadership of CSU and Bethune-Cookman. Massive austerity cuts and attacks by the very people offering choice have left these institutions with very narrow choices: A) Accept massive cuts that will seriously undermine the education of students; or B) Pander to the very people committing those cuts in an attempt to stave off disaster.
Like the students, we should be demanding answers. Why were they invited to speak in the first place? Whose choice was that?
The same goes for “choice” as a general concept. Choose an under-resourced school or a school that uses zero tolerance discipline. Choose between an overcrowded school or a school without a parent-elected local school council. Choose between program cuts or a school that doesn’t follow special education law. Choose the status quo or a potential improvement designed predominantly by white outsiders with minimal experience in the community—or even in education. The choices offered never include equity or agency. In fact, in the vast majority of cases, assistance is predicated on giving up access to the tools to fight back against inequity.
While the university administrations are not solely responsible for their compliance with this oppression, it is worth comparing their responses to those of the graduates. While the administrations entertained oppression and racism in a pandering attempt to survive, and defended this strategy in their conversations with media, the graduates resisted. The graduates modeled the best choice in a school choice landscape: to fight back for real equity. Bethune-Cookman University and Chicago State University are targets precisely because they perform the education that school choice promoters couldn’t dream of offering. Instead of content and achievement through compliance, they offer a legacy of black excellence grounded in the historical memory of struggle. Both bodies of graduates modeled the teachings of Mary McLeod Bethune,
"If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. We should, therefore, protest openly everything... that smacks of discrimination or slander."
It’s time we as a nation follow those students and Bethune’s example. We must not acquiesce in the face of inequity engineered through false choices. Let’s not only fight against school privatization through “choice,” let’s fight for the agency and power that provides the truest “choice” to all: equity.