Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ choice to help lead the department’s Office for Civil Rights once complained that in college she had experienced discrimination for being white, ProPublica reported Friday.
Candice Jackson was tapped to serve as the deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Civil Rights, a position that does not require Senate confirmation. But she will serve as the interim head of the office until the assistant secretary has been named. At the office, Jackson will be charged with helping protect students from discrimination.
She once recounted her experience in a class at Stanford University in the 1990s, where she was an undergraduate student, in a piece for the Stanford Review. She complained that she was unable to join a section of a math class that offered minority students additional help with tough problems, according to ProPublica.
“I am especially disappointed that the University encourages these and other discriminatory programs,” Jackson wrote, per ProPublica. “We need to allow each person to define his or her own achievements instead of assuming competence or incompetence based on race.”
Jackson also wrote an op-ed when she was an undergraduate that opposed affirmative action, arguing that it “promotes racial discrimination,” according to the report.
“As with most liberal solutions to a problem, giving special assistance to minority students is a band-aid solution to a deep problem,” she wrote, as quoted by ProPublica. “No one, least of all the minority student, is well served by receiving special treatment based on race or ethnicity.”
Asked for an interview by ProPublica, Jackson referred the outlet to the Department of Education. The Education Department did not respond to the publication’s request for a statement.
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