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Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was back in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, this week, for some meetings, where she made herself available for questions from and .

During a visit to Grand Rapids Community College on Tuesday, DeVos if she would intervene if states offered vouchers to private schools that discriminated against LGBTQ students. She declined to answer or provide reassurance that taxpayer dollars would not be used to discriminate.

This wasn鈥檛 surprising, since DeVos has refused to stand against discrimination many times before. At a House hearing in May on the Department of Education鈥檚 proposed budget, which included a new $250 million voucher program, DeVos providing federal money to schools that discriminate against LGBTQ students. Likewise, at a Senate hearing in June, she if schools that discriminate would be barred from receiving federal money.

DeVos has said the states would set the rules and federal money from private schools. But state-run voucher programs, which funnel taxpayer money from public schools to private and religious schools, have deeply troubling records on discrimination. Private schools participating in voucher programs often to LGBTQ students and students with LGBTQ parents. They also often , by denying them admission, providing inadequate services, or subjecting them to excessive discipline. Many programs because schools charge more than the voucher value, and voucher programs have been shown to .

Eliminating discriminatory barriers in education should be central to the mission of the education secretary. Yet, DeVos鈥檚 record before joining the Trump administration shows diehard devotion to causes that erect these barriers.

She and her family have spent millions to support politicians, groups, and initiatives that would advance the spread of vouchers in Michigan and throughout the country. One of the most notable examples is from 2000, when DeVos and her family attempted to change the Michigan state constitution to allow public financing of private and religious schools 鈥� an initiative that 68 percent of voters rejected.

DeVos has started several advocacy organizations to promote vouchers and other ways of privatizing public education. One such organization is the American Federation for Children, which DeVos chaired prior to her nomination to lead the Department of Education. During the first half of this year, American Federation for Children was busy Congress and the White House in favor of a federal voucher program.

Just last year, DeVos fought to to increase oversight of charter schools in Detroit, where those schools 鈥� most of them operated by for-profit companies 鈥� have . State lawmakers who supported her position received generous campaign contributions from her family, which gave the state Republican Party and candidates in the course of a few months last year.

DeVos鈥檚 approach to education hasn鈥檛 changed with her move into the Trump administration. She recently commented that, under her watch, the Department of Education鈥檚 Office for Civil Rights will be a 鈥溾�� agency. One of the department鈥檚 first major acts was to revoke guidance that clarified that transgender students are protected from sex discrimination by Title IX, the federal law that bars gender discrimination. Revoking the guidance did not change schools' obligations to protect transgender students, but it was a troubling signal.

The evidence is overwhelming that DeVos鈥檚 plans would promote discrimination and harm the most vulnerable students, just as her record showed in Michigan. Now, she鈥檚 intent on taking those failed policies national.