In trying to embarrass Linda McMahon, Congresswoman shows herself to be ignorant and close-minded.

And helps us understand the importance of the campaign against DEI on college campuses

This week, Linda McMahon testified before the House Education and Workforce Committee. One of its Democratic Members, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, attempted to embarrass McMahon with a series of “gotcha” questions.

Lee asked McMahon whether she would consider it “illegal DEI for a lesson plan [to discuss] the Tulsa Race Massacre?” or to include Ruby Bridges’ book Through My Eyes. McMahon responded that she would get back to the Congresswoman about this.

Then, in obvious attempts at “gotcha,” Lee asked the Secretary whether she knew what the Tulsa massacre was and who Bridges is. McMahon could not identify either the event or the author.

But McMahon did provide the correct answer to the question at the heart of the controversy over teaching about race. Lee asked whether teaching an African American history course would breach the administration’s anti-DEI policies. McMahon responded that “if you’re giving the facts on both sides, of course they’re not DEI.”

Thinking she had secured another “gothca,” Lee replied that she didn’t know what both sides of a Black history course would be.

I think McMahon can be excused for not knowing who Ruby Bridges is. I didn’t. She can also be excused for not knowing about the Tulsa Massacre which has only recently come into prominence as an example of what McMahon very likely knows is a sorry history of American racism and mistreatment of blacks.

Lee can perhaps be excused for not knowing that there is more than one side to black history. Presumably, the black studies courses at Penn State and the Critical Race Theory (CRT) courses at Howard Law School presented only one side.

Nor does the one-sidedness appear confined to these institutions. Abby Phillip, a Harvard grad, said on her CNN show that she doesn’t know more than one side to black history, either.

However, it’s difficult to excuse the weak-mindedness needed to believe there’s only one side to any broad historical subject. Ideologically-driven blindness isn’t much of an excuse.

There is certainly more than one side to American black history. At a minimum, there is the hard-left, CRT version and the side that rejects it.

Consider the infamous 1619 Project brought to us by the New York Times. It holds that the importation of a small number of slaves to Virginia in 1619 is the true “founding” moment in American history. The other side of the debate insists that our true founding moments occurred in the 1770s and/or 1780s.

Speaking of that period, the 1619 Project maintained that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. The other side denies this absurdity.

Consider, too, the view of black history held by authors of the proposed curriculum for AP African-American History. Stanley Kurtz showed how these views are founded on Marxism, the pro-violence teachings of Franz Fanon, and the radicalism of outfits like the Black Panthers. There are two sides to the merit of capitalism (and its relationship with slavery) and to the black nationalist, pro-revolutionary legacy of black radicalism.

No reasonable person would contend that there are two sides to the moral question of whether slavery was evil. But there is more than one side to specific factual questions about American slavery.

For example, following publication of the 1619 Project, scholars specializing in the Civil War sent a letter to the New York Times saying that "the 1619 Project offers a historically-limited view of slavery." While agreeing to the importance of examining American slavery, they objected to what they described as the portrayal of slavery as a uniquely American phenomenon, to construing slavery as a capitalist venture, and to presenting out-of-context quotes of a conversation between Abraham Lincoln and "five esteemed free black men."

Consider, too, the dispute over the teaching of black studies in Florida. The state’s black history standards came under heavy fire from the CRT crowd — proof, itself, that there are at least two sides to black history in America. One source of contention was the statement that some slaves were able to learn valuable skills in servitude, and later put them to use as freed men and women.

I doubt there are two sides to this question. But the firestorm it created shows that there are two sides to how the history of slavery can and should be taught. A one-sided approach would exclude statements like the ones in the scholars’ letter to the New York Times or the one that proved so objectionable to the CRT crowd in Florida. A multi-sided approach would not.

When Lee and Phillip in effect deny that there are two sides to black history, they reveal the true face of DEI and the pushback against the Trump administration’s attempt to counter it on college campuses. That face has been covered, albeit thinly, as the left tries to pose as defenders of academic freedom.

It is antithetical to academic freedom to pretend that a matter as complex and controversial as black history has only one side. But that sort of insistence is at the heart of what’s wrong with the teaching of liberal arts in America. Open inquiry is off-the-table, replaced by indoctrination in leftist dogma.

There’s a danger that Trump’s anti-DEI campaign aims to replace one closed, doctrinaire form of teaching with another. Even if true, it’s unlikely that this campaign will accomplish anything more than restoring some semblance of balance on campus.

In any case, Secretary McMahon’s statement that teaching is not DEI as long as the facts on both sides are presented isn’t just unobjectionable. It’s a near-perfect short-hand description of how history, including black history, should be taught.