UM Insight Screencap from Cookman.edu
DeVos B-C Full
I love being United Methodist, truly I do. John Wesley’s theology of “grace upon grace” sustains me in my worst moments of life. I gladly give as much as I can to my local congregation to pay our apportionments, because I know how very little of that amount – about 3 cents out of every $1 – goes to fund the amazing ministry and mission that we collectively accomplish worldwide.
One of the special apportioned funds that has become dear to my heart is the Black College Fund. Not every United Methodist knows this, but we as a church support 11 historically black colleges and universities across the United States. Methodists were instrumental in helping to create and sustain institutions of higher learning for freed slaves and African Americans living under the oppression of Jim Crow laws and white privilege. Generations of doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses, teachers, and other professionals that have served their communities profoundly well have come from what we call HBCUs.
Given this reality, I cannot fathom why such a divisive figure as Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would be asked to deliver a commencement address at United Methodist-related Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla. The only reason I can find is a deeply troubling one, and it has to do with the possibility of creating some kind of political advantage.
The Trump Administration is trying to create the illusion that HBCUs are “pioneers of school choice.” For anyone who knows the history of HBCUs, this pretense is not only laughable, it’s downright insulting. Historically black colleges and universities weren’t created out of “school choice.” They were created because black people seeking to further their educations had no other choice!
Make no mistake: “school choice” is merely a smokescreen for dismantling public education, the source of education for most urban African American children today. Betsy DeVos is on record as supporting this travesty. Bethune-Cookman students, their families and friends, and United Methodist contributors who give to the UMC’s Black College Fund understand this. Conversely, I don’t understand why the presidents of some HBCUs, including some from United Methodist schools, are going along with this political farce.
Some would say that as a white woman of privilege, I have no business commenting on what happened at Bethune-Cookman’s graduation ceremony. Nonetheless, I claim some responsibility to critique B-C’s incident, because what happens in our African American community matters to our church and our society at large. As someone who struggles to help our church and American society build the “beloved community” so prized by the great theologian Howard Thurman and by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I claim the privilege to say that Secretary DeVos’ agenda threatens American public education. Furthermore, her appearance at Bethune-Cookman to promote that agenda was both insensitive and insulting, not only to the university’s graduates and their supporters, but to thousands of benefactors like me.
As a result of the scandal of having Betsy DeVos speak at Bethune-Cookman, I have made an additional contribution this year to one of the UMC-supported black colleges, in memory of my dear colleague Denise Johnson Stovall. Denise was the first black associate editor of The United Methodist Reporter newspaper, and she did everything she could to help others get an education -- including her white colleagues. My gift isn’t much as such things go, but it represents my commitment, as a United Methodist and as an American, to support quality education for a segment of our population that faces the real threat of educational deprivation from political forces.
Yes, Bethune-Cookman's graduates, their families and friends in the audience disrupted the ceremony by booing and turning their backs on Secretary DeVos. And I say: Good for them! If we don’t stand up for truth in the face of blatant lies, we will deserve the downfall we get. That’s one of the many things we learn in school, especially in college.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor and Founder of United Methodist Insight.