Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday morning, two of the survivors of the horrific shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had harsh words for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and revealed she secretly “lurked” around their campus and intruded on private counseling sessions during her highly publicized photo-op visit to the school.
Speaking with AM Joy host Joy Reid, students Jaclyn Corin and Ryan Deitsch rolled their eyes when asked about testimony given by DeVos to a Senate panel, where the education secretary admitted that she was not looking into gun violence as part of her school safety study.
“I have to let you two respond to Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education,” Reid began. “I wanted to give you guys a chance to respond to her. She was at a hearing and she was asked by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont whether or not her study of gun violence in schools will include guns.
“Ultimately, Betsy DeVos needs to understand that there have been over 20 school shootings in 2018 alone and if our secretary of education fails to recognize the role that guns play in our schools, she doesn’t represent the students of America,” Corin replied.
Deitsch had a harsher take and a personal story to share.
“I lost all respect for Ms. DeVos after she visited our tragedy,” he recalled. “She came in one morning to secretly to just lurk the halls. I was a part of the school TV production program and I had to film her going about this. She would whisper to staff members. She would sit down with grieving students when they were in a private counseling session, fully breaking the privacy session that these students needed after they lost their friends.”
“I just can’t respect that she couldn’t even look at one of the leading causes of just in schools which shouldn’t be a classic thing in America,” he continued. “This shouldn’t be a classic thing in the 21st century that we’re talking about how many kids are dying in schools and how to stop it — let alone ignoring something as obvious as the gun.”
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