What a difference a few years can make. From Betsy DeVos's letter of resignation on January 7, 2021, where she says they ought to be highlighting the administration's super-duper achievements:
Instead, we are left to clean up the mess caused by violent protesters overring the U. S. Capitol in an attempt to undermine the people's business. The behavior was unconscionable for our country. There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.
Impressionable children were watching all of this, and they are learning from us. I believe we each have a moral obligation to exercise good judgement and model the behavior we hope they would emulate. They must know from us that America is greater than what transpired yesterday. To that end, today I resign from my position, effective Friday, January 8, in support of the oath I took to our Constitution, our people, and our freedoms.
It was a decent position to take; she could have just sat on her hands and run out the clock, and there was nothing much for her to gain by her open, public disapproval--she was not just one more craven politician trying to get on the right side of history.
But that was then. DeVos has gotten over her outrage. In an interview with the Detroit News (paywalled), she indicated that she would sign on for another stint as Trump Education Secretary--under certain conditions.
One was that the administration embrace the goal of phasing out the Department of Education, a goal that is included in Project 2025, Agenda 47, and the rhetoric of many GOP pols. It also appears on the list of things that Trump said he would do when he was the actual President, and did not. DeVos alludes to a plan to starve the department by cutting off funding, a thing that really didn't happen beyond the administration submitting symbolic cuts which Congress promptly ignored (c.f. the annual flap over Special Olympics funding).
The other was that the administration try to sell her Education Freedom Scholarships, a federal voucher program that she tried really hard to sell last time, even getting Ted Cruz to throw his charisma behind it despite its many problems. It went nowhere.
So she'd come back if it meant the chance to fail at two pet projects all over again.
She also acknowledged that another condition would be Trump asking her to come back, which she allows is not terribly likely. She does not indicate how accepting an invitation from Trump would be meeting her moral obligation to model good judgment for the youngs. But I reckon if there are goals you really, really want to pursue, it's okay to shave a few principles here and there.
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