Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I come to the floor today to speak on the nomination of Kenneth Marcus to lead the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, a nomination we are going to vote on in just a few minutes.

First of all, I want to say that I am pleased President Trump and Secretary DeVos have moved away from their original choice for this position. I believe the current Acting Assistant Secretary, Candice Jackson, is unfit for this role and should be removed from her current position, not just because of the callous, insensitive, and egregious comments she made regarding sexual assault on college campuses but also because of the way she has worked to narrow the role of this office and back away from enforcing transgender students' rights and take away the tools and resources it has as an office to protect our students and actually move it away from its core mission. So as I have said before, I am very glad President Trump and Secretary DeVos decided to nominate someone else to replace Ms. Jackson.

Secondly, I want to thank this nominee, Kenneth Marcus, for his service over the years and for his commitment to the goal of halting discrimination on our college campuses, which is certainly an issue the OCR will face in light of incidents of hateful rhetoric and violence occurring on our campuses and in schools.

I respect Mr. Marcus's commitment, but right now, in this administration, it is not enough. We are now just a bit more than 500 days into President Trump's term, and when it comes to his record and his rhetoric on civil rights, I haven't been surprised once.

I want to start with his rhetoric. This is a President who kicked off his campaign by calling Mexicans criminals, who has called for a ban on all Muslims coming to America, who has openly ridiculed a journalist with a disability, who has openly demeaned women, who defended White supremacists rallying in Charlottesville by saying there were ``many fine people'' among them, who compared immigrants to ``animals'' and referred to entire countries with an expletive I will not repeat on the Senate floor. Sadly, I can go on.

It goes beyond his hateful rhetoric. President Trump has tried to implement that Muslim ban. He has actually rolled back guidance on enforcing transgender students' rights. He revoked title IX guidance, which protects women and helps bring perpetrators of sexual assault to justice, halted investigations into systemic discrimination, and has pushed his administration to engage in appalling behavior on our border, dehumanizing immigrants and separating kids from their families. That list goes on.

I feel very confident in saying that when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to the rights and safety of women, of people of color, of LGBTQ people, of people with disabilities, this President has purposefully fanned the flames of racism, ableism, bigotry, and sexism in ways that we have not seen in a generation, and anyone who cares about civil rights in America should be able to point that out.

That is why I was so disappointed that President Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights could not answer one of my questions at his hearing. When I asked Mr. Marcus to name a single example of something President Trump has said or done that he disagrees with when it comes to discrimination or women's rights or civil rights, he couldn't say one--not a single example, and that is all I was looking for.

He could have talked about how President Trump has stoked hatred and division of Muslims and Latinos; maybe he disagreed with that. He could have talked about how President Trump has downplayed hate crimes against minority communities here in America; maybe he could have said he disagreed with that. He could have talked about how President Trump nominated Jeff Sessions to lead his Justice Department, someone with a record of opposing civil rights protections; maybe he disagreed with that. He could have talked about how President Trump named someone hostile to LGBTQ rights to lead the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services; maybe he could have disagreed with that. He could have talked about any of the ways President Trump has tried to weaken and has actually weakened the office Mr. Marcus is nominated to lead; maybe he disagreed with that. Unfortunately, in this administration, there is almost no end to the options Mr. Marcus had when I asked him a simple question, but we do not know where he stands because he wouldn't name a single thing--not one.

He said: ``I really couldn't say, Senator.'' That was his response to my question.

There are reasons to oppose this nomination, but for me, this nonresponse to what should be an easy question was enough for me. We have to have someone in this position who is not only able to say that he disagrees with President Trump when it comes to civil rights; we need someone who is prepared to stand up to him. We need someone who is not only able to say they stand on the side of civil rights in the face of constant attacks; we need someone who is actually willing to disagree with their bosses--President Trump and Secretary DeVos--when civil rights are being threatened. But Mr. Marcus could not commit to me that he would do either, and that is something I simply cannot support.

I will be opposing this nomination, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Thank you.
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Mrs. MURRAY. We yield back our time.
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