The House of Representatives is one of the loudest forums in Washington, where celebrities freely express their opinions and compete for points.
But it turns out that the daunting challenges of running a public school district, including board meetings, PTA meetings, and battles over textbooks and discipline, can be a daunting preparation for testifying before the House. As public school leaders demonstrated Wednesday, a little mixing it up can go a long way toward neutralizing an attention-seeking legislature.
Wednesday's hearing was the latest in the House Education and Labor Committee's efforts to scrutinize anti-Semitism on campuses and censure academic leaders in the process. In previous hearings, university presidents have chosen a strategy of conciliatory behavior and monotonous lawyer-like answers. Both approaches largely backfired, provoking outrage on the president's campus and often beyond.
Both approaches were largely abandoned Wednesday.
“This rally feels like the ultimate troubling moment for too many educators across America,” New York City Schools Superintendent David C. Banks said toward the end of the hearing. Ta. “It doesn't sound like people are actually trying to solve anything, but I believe we should do everything we can to solve it.”
By then, Banks appeared to be putting her law degree to use during the two-hour Republican-led hearing. He sharply debunked some of his claims, saying, “We found no evidence that that actually happened.” He sharply dismissed the lawmaker's statement that he was “sorry to feel that way.” And he suggested that Congress may not always be as pure as the declaration, saying that “some members have made anti-Semitic statements.”
On the witness stand, Berkeley, Calif. Schools Superintendent Enikia Ford Motel appeared unconcerned by pressure from lawmakers to discuss personnel matters in a manner that violated employee confidentiality, violating California law, and local Corrected state legislators. Her rambling questions about discipline left her “confused,” she said.
The tactic was a sharp departure from the norm on Capitol Hill, where it is common for lawmakers to behave in a manner that raises eyebrows during made-for-TV hearings.
There are exceptions. Last year, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, called on the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to fight “with his chest up.” Union leader Sean O'Brien took the same bold move. Sen. Bernie Sanders, 82, slammed his gavel to stop a literal fistfight from taking place during a Senate hearing.
But in two House Education Committee hearings, university leaders were cautious, or at least cool, with Congress. Wednesday's hearing marked the first time during this particular inquest that witnesses so consistently challenged their interrogators.
Christopher Armstrong, a lawyer at Holland & Knight who represents clients through congressional investigations and oversight hearings, said he generally doesn't encourage combative behavior in Congress.
“I can't imagine a situation where that would help you,” he said, although he acknowledged Wednesday's hearing probably demonstrated just that situation.
In fact, Banks, who will become prime minister in 2022, sounded like a satisfied grizzled New Yorker after the hearing. Like the other leaders who testified with him, he too had been tested by heated debates on an unrelenting stage. To him, the Capitol was just another place.
“The complexity of New York City prepares us for moments like this,” he said, surrounded by New York faith leaders who had traveled with him to Washington. “And I think some university presidents probably didn't benefit from this type of testing.”
That may be true. But local school superintendents also have very different duties than presidents of major universities. Superintendents rarely have a national profile, and their most important audience is virtually in their own backyard. Presidents of universities like Columbia and Harvard must contend with sprawling networks that routinely include courageous faculty, wealthy donors, powerful trustees, and undaunted students.
Armstrong said he felt Banks' approach was not appropriate for a university president, saying, “This is a much more difficult balancing act than a president of the New York City public school system would have to make.”
Local school leaders had other advantages as well. Ira Stoll, former editor-in-chief of the Harvard University-based Education Policy Journal, points out that Americans are deeply accustomed to the soundtrack of public dissatisfaction with public education. But they also signal limited appetite for federal oversight of the nation's elementary and middle schools.
The primary and secondary education system is primarily locally managed and locally funded. The federal government oversees civil rights complaints in schools, but the Department of Education, not Congress, typically handles them through an investigative process.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and groups like Moms for Liberty are demonstrating that public schools can be ripe for political battle. But Congressional Republicans, desperate to take back the power of the December hearings that prompted the resignations of the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, are using sophisticated tools to attack higher education as a bulwark of the out-of-the-way. He also has a strategy. Touch the elite.
“There was a book called “Harvard Hates America,'' said prominent conservative author Bill Kristol, referring to a 1970s conservative exposé on elitism and liberal indoctrination that was on display at Harvard University. Ta. “There is no book called “Fairfax County Public Schools Hates America.''
Lawmakers weren't necessarily able to act on their own Wednesday. Witnesses often meandered during the five-minute questioning period, leaving the proceedings unfocused and too happy to ruminate as witnesses waited overtime.
Republicans managed several moments of victory. In response to a question from Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolina, Ms. Ford Motel acknowledged that some of the lessons learned at Berkeley regarding the Israel-Hamas war seem to minimize the impact of the conflict on Israelis. Ta.
California Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley also proved effective when he questioned the district's ethnic studies curriculum.
Ms. Ford-Motel acknowledged that the district works with an organization known as Liberation Peoples Studies, which provides samples of curriculum materials that are highly critical of Israel. The group ignores California guidelines on how Israel should be taught.
But overall, “I didn't think the questions were sharp,” said Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, which is suing several California school districts, including Berkeley. . Israel. “I thought the people who testified could slip away.”
Rep. Aaron Bean, Republican of Florida, who led the hearing, declared it a “great meeting” with “open and honest conversations.”
“Our aim was to show that this is actually happening,” he said of reports of anti-Semitism in schools. “A lot of people say that won't happen.”
Republicans will have another chance to make their case on May 23, when the presidents of Northwestern University, Rutgers University and the University of California, Los Angeles, are scheduled to meet at the Capitol.
Whether the Republican Party can realize its ambitions may depend on which strategy the president adopts.