At confirmation hearing, Linda McMahon refuses to say Black history courses will be allowed

Linda McMahon, the former professional wrestling executive tapped by Donald Trump to lead — and potentially dismantle — the Education Department was unsure during her confirmation hearing when asked whether Black history courses could run afoul of the new administration.

At Thursday’s hearing, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told McMahon that many educators would be “scrambling” after her refusal to answer definitively whether a Black history course might be seen as being in violation of a Trump executive order targeting diversity. When the senator raised the question, McMahon replied that she’d “like to look into it further and get back to you on that.”

She essentially said the same thing when she was asked whether public schools could lose federal funding for offering a Black history course. And McMahon also falsely claimed that schools that offer special graduation ceremonies for various groups — such as for Black and Latino students — are engaging in segregation.

So there you have it. The nation’s likely next education secretary declined multiple opportunities to declare that Black history courses are permissible under Trump. This is only at issue because conservatives have targeted Black history courses and programming for marginalized groups in their war on “woke” and “DEI,” two terms I’ve yet to hear a single conservative define accurately — but which they use to frame white men as victimized.

McMahon’s answers suggest that, if confirmed, she’d likely have no qualms with aiding the administration’s bigoted attack on diversity, an assault that’s poised to warp the minds of American youth by obscuring — if not outlawing — stories about marginalized groups and their experiences throughout our nation’s history.

It seems the MAGA movement wants an education secretary committed to hammering home their vision of white men as the main protagonists in the American story. This is where I think McMahon, despite her glaring lack of qualifications for a traditional education secretary, is a perfect choice to lead the perverse propaganda agency that Trump seems to want the Education Department to become.

If you were hiring someone — as it appears Trump is — based on their ability to help promote the idea that white men are the heroic main characters in American history, and all other people are subjects and side characters (maybe even foils), you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with more cred than McMahon.

For years, she and her husband, Vince McMahon, led World Wrestling Entertainment, which trafficked in some of the most grotesquely racist and sexist stereotypes imaginable, amassing great profit and popularity. The son-in-law who sat behind her Thursday — wrestler-turned-WWE executive Paul Levesque — rose to fame while donning blackface to mock Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, acting like a monkey to mock a Black wrestler, and portraying himself as an Asian doctor for comedic relief.

McMahon’s WWE made billions of dollars marketing superstars — frequently white men — who would conquer Black wrestlers portrayed as criminals; Mexican wrestlers portrayed as thieves and laborers; (purportedly) Arab wrestlers portrayed as terrorist sympathizers; gay characters portrayed as weak and effeminate; and women, including McMahon’s own daughter, portrayed as “sluts” and sex workers.

So McMahon may not know a ton about education. As for indoctrination, she seems pretty elite.

Ja’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”