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September 29, 2017

Protests Against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Decry School Privatization
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In Cambridge, Massachusetts, hundreds of protesters gathered Thursday
outside a Harvard University forum where Education Secretary Betsy De
Vos was delivering a speech on school choice, while scores of students
protested silently inside the event, raising their fists and unfurling
banners reading "white supremacist" and "Our students are not 4 sale."
The protesters say they oppose De Vos's efforts to privatize public
schools and roll back civil rights and sexual violence protections for
millions of students. This is Harvard graduate student Jeff Rousset
confronting De Vos in a Q&A after her speech.

Jeff Rousset: "Hi. My name is Jeff Rousset. I'm a master in public
administration student here at the Kennedy School. So, you're a
billionaire with lots and lots of investments. And the so-called school
choice movement is a way to open the floodgates for corporate interests
to make money off of the backs of students. How much do you expect your
net worth to increase as a result of your policy choices? And what are
your friends on Wall Street and the business world, like the Koch
brothers, saying about the potential to get rich off the backs of
students?"

De Vos fired back, "I have written lots of checks to give parents and
students lots of options to go to the school of their choice. The
balance on my income has gone very much the other way." Joining the
protest were sexual assault survivors opposed to a recent move by De Vos
to roll back Obama-era rules on how universities investigate campus sex
crimes.


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