Candice Jackson has a keen eye for racism—when practiced against her, a white woman. Now, thanks to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, she may become one of the most powerful civil rights figures in America.
Last week, ProPublica reported that during her time at Stanford University as an undergrad in the mid-90s, the woman who has been nominated to be the deputy assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education penned as series of op-eds for the conservative Stanford Review describing the “racism” she faced as a white person while attending Stanford, claiming that the university’s support for affirmative action amounted to promoting “racial discrimination.”
Conservatives have long fought to undermine affirmative action by dismissing the benefits of multiculturalism, describing the supposed hardships inflicted upon white Americans, and critiquing the formulas schools implement to create their diverse student bodies. Jackson’s perspective aligns with a troubling interpretation of civil rights that views white Americans as suffering a significant share of racial discrimination. Many Trump supporters agree with this perspective.