March 7, 2018

Betsy DeVos’ Brief, Confusing Visit to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Her press conference lasted a grand total of eight minutes.

Amy Beth Bennett/TNS via ZUMA Wire

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Wednesday, education secretary Betsy DeVos toured Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and met with students and faculty weeks after they survived a mass shooting that left 17 dead at their school. She said she saw therapy dogs, talked to “a small group of students that are having a particularly tough time,” and let students who worked with the school newspaper trail her. 

After the visit, she held an eight-minute press conference. When asked about her support for the idea of letting teachers carry firearms in schools, DeVos said that interpretation was an “oversimplification” and that schools should consider marshal programs like the one in Texas as a model, noting that it may not be for everybody. 

DeVos answered a few more questions, including one about her plans to improve school safety. “It’s appropriate to take a robust inventory of what states are doing and what local communities are doing and elevate those things that are working well,” she said. She didn’t elaborate on specific proposals. 

After the press conference, journalists and students took to Twitter to express their confusion and frustration:

 An editor at the student newspaper denied that DeVos let students follow her:

Meanwhile, Miami Heat superstar Dwyane Wade showed up at Stoneman Douglas after DeVos made her appearance, much to the surprise of students.

LESS DREADING, MORE DOING

This is the rubber-meets-road moment: the early days in our first fundraising drive since we took a big swing and merged with CIR to bring fearless investigative reporting to the internet, radio, video, and everywhere else that people need an antidote to lies and propaganda.

Donations have started slow, and we hope that explaining, level-headedly, why your support really is everything for our reporting will make a difference. Learn more in “Less Dreading, More Doing,” or in this 2:28 video about our merger (that literally just won an award), and please pitch in if you can right now.

payment methods

LESS DREADING, MORE DOING

This is the rubber-meets-road moment: the early days in our first fundraising drive since we took a big swing and merged with CIR to bring fearless investigative reporting to the internet, radio, video, and everywhere else that people need an antidote to lies and propaganda.

Donations have started slow, and we hope that explaining, level-headedly, why your support really is everything for our reporting will make a difference. Learn more in “Less Dreading, More Doing,” or in this 2:28 video about our merger (that literally just won an award), and please pitch in if you can right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate