As Betsy DeVos’ Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday approaches, observers look to her past to divine what her priorities might be as education secretary. A billionaire in her own right and married to Richard DeVos, an heir to the Amway fortune, Devos has used her wealth to exercise considerable influence over philanthropic efforts and legislative initiatives related to education in her home state of Michigan.
Politically, DeVos has consistently swung conservative, donating millions to Republican lawmakers over the years and sitting on the boards of conservative thinktanks and nonprofits dedicated to school choice. Yet despite her record, DeVos has attracted criticism in recent months from affirmative action’s staunchest opponents for her past positions on affirmative action policies.
In an opinion piece published in The Detroit News in July 2003, DeVos questioned the need for a ballot initiative on affirmative action policies when Gratz v. Bollinger had just been decided in June 2003. In the Gratz v. Bollinger decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the University of Michigan’s then-policy of awarding 20 points to underrepresented minorities in the admissions process was unconstitutional.
“No matter how well-intentioned, a ballot initiative designed to eliminate affirmative action programs in higher education here in Michigan could very well result in 18 months of vitriolic public discourse that centers on racial issues,” DeVos wrote.
The ballot initiative in question was the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), or Proposition 2, introduced to the state by Ward Connerly in 2003. Connerly is a former regent of the University of California who successfully introduced measures in California and Washington that banned affirmative action policies in both states.
At the time of writing, DeVos was chair of the Michigan Republican State committee, a position she had held from 1996 to 2000, and again from 2003 to 2005.
To be clear, DeVos did not come out swinging in favor of affirmative action policies, writing:
