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LINDA MCMAHON UNSURE IF TEACHING BLACK HISTORY FLOUTS TRUMP’S
ANTI-DEI POLICY  
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Robert Tait
June 4, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Education secretary said ‘if you’re giving facts on both
sides’ of Tulsa race massacre, it wouldn’t be DEI'. _

While questioned by Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa. at a June 4 congressional
hearing, McMahon appeared clueless about the Tulsa Race Massacre, a
historical event of racial violence that has horrified generations of
African Americans., (Photo: United States Congress)

 

Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said on Wednesday she was
unsure if teaching students about two of the most notorious racist
episodes in US history would fall foul of the Trump administration’s
onslaught against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Testifying before the House of Representatives’ education and
workforce subcommittee, McMahon appeared uncertain of her facts when
confronted by Summer Lee, a Democratic representative from
Pennsylvania. Lee asked her about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre
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Bridges
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a civil rights workers who as a six-year-old, braved a screaming mob
to become the first Black child to attend a previously all-white
school.

The exchange occurred after Lee asked her if teaching an African
American history course would breach the administration’s anti-DEI
policies.

“I do not think that African studies or Middle East studies or
Chinese studies are part of DEI if they are taught as part of the
total history package,” she said. “So that if you’re giving the
facts on both sides, of course they’re not DEI.”

Lee said she was unsure what both sides of a Black history course
would be and raised the questions about Tulsa and Bridges, prompting
McMahon to respond that she would “look into them”.

That in turn led to Lee asking: “Do you know what the Tulsa race
massacre is?” McMahon replied: “I’d like to look into it
more.”

The Tulsa episode is widely seen as the single worst outbreak of
racial violence in American history, when an attack on the city’s
Black community led to the destruction of more than 1,000 homes and
business, and the deaths of between 50 and 300 people, according to
various estimates. The attack happened during a period of racial
tensions marked by the growth of the Ku Klux Klan.

Lee then asked if it would be illegal to teach Bridges’ book,
Through My Eyes, which documents her experience of attending a
formerly segregated school in New Orleans in 1960, under the escort of
federal marshals. The episode was later depicted in a famous Norman
Rockwell painting, entitled The Problem We All Live With
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McMahon said she had not read Bridges’ book, leading Lee to ask:
“Have you learned about Ruby Bridges?”

McMahon – a billionaire former president of World Wrestling
Entertainment – tried to respond: “If you have any specific
examples you would like to … ”

Lee cut her off, saying: “That was an incredibly specific
example.”

McMahon was equally vague when asked if schools could be penalized for
accurately teaching that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

She said that social studies “should all be taught accurately” and
that “we should hear all sides” when Lee raised the question in
the context of recent changes in Oklahoma, where the state’s schools
superintendent recently ushered in the introduction of election
conspiracy into the curriculum. These include asking students to
“identify discrepancies” in the 2020 poll.

McMahon also clashed with the Democratic representative Mark Takano
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he challenged her about “viewpoint diversity” at Harvard, a
principle the administration says it wants to enforce to counteract
supposed liberal bias.

“Does refusing to hire a Holocaust denier as a member of Harvard’s
history department faculty count as an ideological limit test?”
Takano asked.

Replying, McMahon said: “I believe that there should be diversity of
viewpoints relative to teachings and opinions on campuses.”

_Robert Tait is political correspondent for Guardian US, based in
Washington DC. He was previously the Guardian's correspondent in the
Czech Republic, Iran and Turkey_

* Linda McMahon
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* Black History
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* DEI
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