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Portland students kicked off the city's anti-Trump protests today, demonstrating against Betsy DeVos, Trump's appointment for Secretary of Education.
About 70 students, teachers, parents and members of the ACLU attended the protest, organized by Portland Student Action Network, which began at 4 pm with speeches at Pioneer Square and then took to the streets in a march that wove through downtown to the Salmon Street Springs and ended near Chapman Square.
"We think [DeVos] will be disastrous to public schools," said Callie Quinn-Ward, a junior at Grant High School and an organizer of the Portland Student Action Network, which she co-founded in November after a series of student anti-Trump protests and which includes representatives from a dozen local high schools.
"DeVos has no background in education. She bought her way into this position. She is part of a corporatocracy that we cannot legitimize. Our education system should be run by educators, not those that buy their power."
DeVos' proposed reforms are raising alarms among backers of public education who fear significant loss of funding to public schools and DeVos' track record of supporting the privatization of schools and government funded vouchers for religious and private schools.
"The soul of public education is at stake," said Susan Anglada-Bartley, a teacher at Grant High School, "the very concept of people in the United States having a right to free and equal education."