Dem Senator And Trump Education Secretary Throw Down Over ‘Instituting Viewpoint Diversity’ At Harvard
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) sparred with Trump Secretary of Education Linda McMahon during a Senate budget hearing on Tuesday. Murphy accused McMahon of taking “totally contradictory” stances in the administration’s ongoing battle against Harvard by both pushing to end all programs that promote diversity while demanding government-mandated “viewpoint diversity.”
“I want to understand what the Department of Education is doing with respect to the threats you’ve made against institutions of higher education. In the letter that you sent to Harvard demanding that they make certain changes, you told them that they had to end all of their diversity programs but that they have to institute viewpoint diversity. That doesn’t seem to make sense. How do you tell them to end all the diversity programs. And we assume that this is a mandate that you will make of other schools as well. How do you ask them to end diversity programs while instituting viewpoint diversity? Those seem to be totally contradictory,” Murphy began.
McMahon replied, “No, the diversity programs that we’ve asked and demanded to be eliminated were the DEI, where those programs actually were pitting one group against another.”
Murphy hit back, “Isn’t viewpoint diversity a diversity program?”
“Viewpoint diversity is exchange of ideas that’s actually better, absolutely. Now here, because Harvard only has 3% by its own numbers, 3% conservative faculty. Do you think they are allowing enough of viewpoint diversity through that teaching–” McMahon replied as Murphy cut in to ask:
Where in the statute does it give you the ability to cut off federal funding for a university based upon your decision, your determination that they don’t have viewpoint diversity? Can you cite to a statute, an authority that Congress has given you to micromanage the viewpoint diversity of a college?
McMahon replied, “Well, certainly if, well, now let’s back up.”
“Well, no, no! I think that’s really important,” Murphy insisted as he tried to keep McMahon from pivoting.
“No, no no. I’m going to answer your question–” she interjected as Murphy demanded, “Can you cite a statute? Because you can’t cut off funding for universities unless you have a statutory authorization to do so. So what statute gives you the right to tell any university that they have to have a certain mixture of viewpoints?”
McMahon tried to answer, “So here’s what happened with Harvard–”
Murphy spoke over her, “No, it’s pretty simple. I don’t mean to provide– being hostile to Harvard. Well, I have to give you some background. I think you have to cite the statute.”
“The statute is Title VI. These were civil rights violations. That is why we filed a case and defunded or stopped the funding for Harvard as well as we did Columbia. And in that conversation with them, we talked about different things that they should do coming back to the table to make their programming better,” McMahon replied, adding:
The president of Columbia absolutely indicated, as well as did the president of Harvard, that they needed to do things on their campus to eliminate anti-Semitism. That was kind of the crux of what brought us into talking to the different universities, and then we sat down with them to say, okay, these are other issues that you need to address on your campus, because you do receive federal funding, and under federal funding if you are breaking the law, which they did under Title VI–
Murphy cut in again, saying, “I don’t understand any conception of civil rights law to give you the authorization to micromanage viewpoint diversity on campus.”
The two spoke over each other as McMahon insisted, “I answered your question.”
Murphy concluded, “That’s not authorized under the civil rights title provided to you by the United States Congress. Thank you very much.”
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
