Reformers must stop whitewashing ‘choice’
Freedom to choose in privatized school system is illusion where it fails to address inequality born of slavery and ultimate lack of ‘choice’
"It’s ironic when abortion rights supporters don’t back school choice,” said U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. But her attempt to point out some kind of moral absurdity during her remarks to Colorado Christian College students at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., last week only pointed out her own.
According to the Colorado Times Recorder, Devos also invoked slavery to underline her point. President Abraham Lincoln had to deal with the ‘pro-choice’ arguments of his time, she continued. “They suggested that a state’s ‘choice’ to be slave or to be free had no moral question in it. Well, President Lincoln reminded those pro-choicers that [there] is a vast portion of the American people that do not look upon that matter as being this very little thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil.’”
Aside from the obvious differences in choice between the expansion of education service providers and a woman’s right to control her reproductive choices and her body, DeVos clearly needs to learn that the Republican understanding of words like choice, freedom, liberty differs significantly for black people with our history of slavery. And this is not the first time DeVos has publicly misinterpreted history. Remember when our education secretary called HBCUs “pioneers of ‘school choice,’” completely missing the fact that black postsecondary institutions were born of government-backed segregation?
When Republicans, who are often the biggest proponents of school choice, use the term and other words like “freedom” and “liberty,” they usually mean it in the sense of freedom from government. “I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism,” said Ronald Reagan in a 1975 interview in Reason magazine. “The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom.” It is assumed that freedom (from government) makes us free to choose. However, the basic liberties black people have gained throughout our time in the U.S. required federal intervention. Thus, the government protection from racism that black CONTINUE READING: Advocates for school choice must stop whitewashing ‘choice’