U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon got an unexpected pop quiz on Black history during a congressional hearing on Wednesday. While questioned by Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., McMahon appeared clueless about the Tulsa Race Massacre, a historical event of racial violence that has horrified generations of African Americans.
McMahon, who President Donald Trump appointed with a mandate to dismantle the Education Department, testified before the House Committee on Education and Labor about her agency’s budget and priorities.
During one striking exchange with Lee about what is or isn’t appropriate to teach in public schools, McMahon appeared stumped when asked about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and civil rights activist Ruby Bridges.
Lee sought to have McMahon clarify what African-American studies courses would be considered a violation of an executive order signed by Trump that bans certain teachings, threatening to withhold federal funding from states and universities that do not comply.
“Would you say that it would be an illegal DEI for a lesson plan on the Tulsa Race Massacre?” asked Lee, referring to the incident in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a white mob murdered thousands and burned down homes and businesses in a thriving Black neighborhood called the Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street.
McMahon replied, “I’d have to get back to you on that.”
“Do you know what the Tulsa Race Massacre is?” Lee later asked. McMahon told the congresswoman, “I’d like to look into it more and get back to you on it.”
McMahon provided a similar answer when Lee asked the ex-professional wrestling mogul whether the Trump administration would consider Bridges’s book, “Through My Eyes,” illegal DEI material in classrooms. Bridges is notably the first African American to desegregate a public school in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the subject of Norman Rockwell’s 1964 painting, “The Problem We All Live With.”
Rep. Summer Lee slammed the Trump administration’s anti-DEI agenda and its impact on public education, strikingly comparing it to the racist era of Jim Crow.
“When [you] call for removing of equity and inclusion and diversity and accessibility from schools in favor of ‘traditional American values,’ it’s indistinguishable from … post-Civil War South advocating to rewrite history with the Lost Cause narrative [and] to censor truths about slavery,” said Lee.
The congresswoman added, “This department’s financial aid policies harken back to a time when higher education was reserved for affluent, well-connected and predominantly white students.”
In a statement to theGrio, Lee said, “It’s pretty telling—and deeply troubling—that this administration is more focused on chasing down Pride flags and banning books than addressing any of the actual crises facing our public education system.”
She continued, “Even if Secretary McMahon was better versed in American history, there is no doubt her department would further attempt to whitewash history and ensure students don’t have access to the facts.”
Lee told theGrio that the Trump administration’s “lack of knowledge, denial of history, and open racism” doesn’t mean students across the country “should be deprived of learning opportunities or access to a quality education.” She added, “Clearly they’re still needed.”
Markus Batchelor, political director at People For the American Way, said McMahon’s testimony made clear her “only goal is to further Trump’s war on knowledge and the true telling of our history.”
“While pretending to not know who Ruby Bridges was or the impact of the Tulsa Race massacre, she’s working every day to ban books and curriculum that acknowledge their existence from libraries and classrooms across the nation,” said Batchelor. “She’s leading a sinister effort to control information and restore a perverse version of white supremacist history.”
He added, “We have to expose it and combat it at every turn.”
