The Department of Education as Right-Wing Troll

BY JENNIFER RUTH

It sounds like a bad joke. The Department of Education (DOE) has apparently launched an investigation into Princeton University. Why? Because President Eisgruber said that racism is embedded in the university structures and its history. “Based on its admitted racism, the U.S. Department of Education is concerned Princeton’s nondiscrimination and equal opportunity assurances in its Program Participation Agreements from at least 2013 to the present may have been false,” says the letter DOE sent to Princeton, according to an article today in the Washington Examiner. “The Department is further concerned,” the letter continues, “Princeton perhaps knew, or should have known, these assurances were false at the time they were made. Finally, the Department is further concerned Princeton’s many nondiscrimination and equal opportunity claims to students, parents, and consumers in the market for education certificates may have been false, misleading, and actionable substantial misrepresentations in violation of 20 U.S.C. § 1094(c)(3)(B) and 34 CFR 668.71(c).”

This is the thinking of a Twitter presidency. I can hear the Trump administration laughing, like they had just posted a “gotcha” comeback on Eisgruber’s Twitter feed. Or it’s the logic of a grade-school administration:  “I know you are but what am I?”  

According to the Washington Examiner, “Multiple people familiar with the matter have confirmed the letter’s validity and assert that this investigation is not political. Instead, they insist that the department has a legal obligation to investigate a supposedly self-admitted violation of federal civil rights protections.” This bad faith feels like the last-minute flailing of a failing campaign as it makes another “attempt to politicize our national reckoning with racism,” to quote AAUP President Irene Mulvey’s recent statement condemning Trump’s attack on critical race theory.  We’d be wise, though, to read it instead as the start of another flurry of attacks on higher education and its autonomy from political interference. More will come before November and perhaps afterwards. 

AAUP chapters are often in an embattled relationship with administrators, as we fight for better working conditions. These Trumpian attacks on higher education are an opportunity to work with administrators to defend our institutions.  We need to ask administrators, particularly those at public institutions, how they intend to counter such public moves and, more pragmatically and more importantly, how they plan to protect the many strands of anti-racist and social justice work faculty, students, and staff do from federal threats to withhold resources. And how the union can help. 

According to the Daily Princetonian, university spokesperson Ben Chang announced in response to the investigation: “It is unfortunate that the Department appears to believe that grappling honestly with the nation’s history and the current effects of systemic racism runs afoul of existing law. The University disagrees and looks forward to furthering our educational mission by explaining why our statements and actions are consistent not only with the law, but also with the highest ideals and aspirations of this country.”

On The American Conservative site, Rod Dreher was quick to call this latest move exactly what it is. “Good for Betsy DeVos. A superb example of trolling,” he says at the end of a column in which he declares gleefully, “If Trump is re-elected, I hope he uses the executive branch to go to war on wokeness in all these institutions.” 

Illustration by Dan177/iStock.

5 thoughts on “The Department of Education as Right-Wing Troll

  1. You have to separate the issue from its institutionalization. The executive administration is correctly addressing an institutional distortion caused by a initiative to programmatically embed ideology in various teaching regimes. The Princeton president was not well advised to embrace it thereby, and it is somewhat surprising that he felt pressured to do so; moreover it is, as Peter Kirsanow, a black civil-rights commissioner and a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights has stated publicly, a clear violation of Title VII, and 42 USC 1981. Those are among the institutional problems. CRT is a political program, not academic scholarship. It more appropriately remains a position subject freely to interrogation, not a platform of enforced re-education. That is now its status in a coherent pedagogic equilibrium.

    • You’ve been influenced by the way critical race theory has been made a weapon in national discourse. I used to assume that people who come to this site are AAUP members and/or work in higher education but I’m realizing that’s not necessarily true. Do you work in higher education? Do you have colleagues knowledgeable about work associated with critical race theory with whom you could speak?

  2. I’m sorry but the Princeton University.President Eisgruber said that racism is embedded in the university structures and its history. He pleaded guilty to pat and current racism, no? If he meant to say something else, he should have done do. He’s an educated person, no?

    DOE should investigate if the university does not live up to its own stated standards, no matter who is the POTUS.

    • Perhaps he is educated enough to understand the difference between structural racism and individual racism. Denying a Black applicant admission to Princeton on the grounds that Black kids are not as smart as White or Asian kids is individual racism — racist behaviors directed at individuals by individuals — but setting aside 20 slots in the freshman class for new lacrosse team members might be structural racism, since lacrosse is a sport dominated by white kids at expensive private schools. It sounds like Eisgruber, and Princeton, are careful to attend to problems of individual racism, but structural racism is a tougher problem to address.

  3. Pingback: Friday Night Links! | Gerry Canavan

Comments are closed.