DeVos questionnaire appears to include passages from uncited sources
President Trump’s nominee for education secretary, in written responses to questions from senators, appears to have used several sentences and phrases from other sources without attribution — including from a top Obama administration civil rights official.
The responses from nominee Betsy DeVos were submitted Monday to the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is voting Tuesday morning on her confirmation.
In answering a set of questions from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on how she would address bullying of LGBT students, DeVos wrote: “Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment where they can learn, thrive, and grow.”
That sentence is almost identical to language used by Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division under President Barack Obama, in a news release announcing the administration’s controversial guidance to schools on how to accommodate transgender students.
“Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment that allows them to thrive and grow,” Gupta said in the May 2016 release.
Rob Goad, a White House education adviser, said in an email: “This is character assassination. The secretary designate has long been referencing the need for safe and supportive learning environments, free of discrimination, for all students, so that they can learn, achieve, thrive, grow and lead successful productive lives. To level an accusation against her about these words included in responses to nearly 1,400 questions — 139 alone from the ranking member — is simply a desperate attempt to discredit Betsy DeVos, who will serve the Department of Education and our nation’s children with distinction if confirmed.”
The revelation comes as Democrats are making an all-out push against key Trump nominees — including DeVos, attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), treasury secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin, and others. But Democrats cannot block those confirmations unless DeVos questionnaire appears to include passages from uncited sources - The Washington Post: