00:00And thank you to both of you for being here today.
00:03A few years ago, we worked really hard across the aisle to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,
00:09a bill that made changes in our gun laws, but in large part because it was a real priority for my Republican colleagues,
00:15also included billions of dollars in funding for school-based and children's mental health.
00:21Earlier this year, you did something extraordinary.
00:24You canceled a billion dollars worth of existing ongoing grants to schools all across the country.
00:33And it's extraordinary because you didn't cut off new grants, you cut off existing grants.
00:41So in states all across the nation, blue and red, there are now mental health programs for kids that are shutting down.
00:50And kids who have been relying on really important adults in their life, these counselors and social workers, are losing access.
00:59You know Connecticut very well.
01:01You shut off a program that provides mental health resources to kids in crisis in Northwest Connecticut.
01:07When they did a survey of these kids and asked the kids who are in this particular program who the one adult was,
01:15who they would go to if they were in mental health trouble or in response to a trauma,
01:21every single one of those kids in that program named the counselor funded by this program.
01:29You've shut that grant down.
01:31When those kids show up to school next fall, that trusted adult will not be there.
01:36You've told this program as well as all the other programs that the reason is they're violating civil rights laws.
01:41This program has no idea what you mean by that.
01:44And I guess I just ask you this.
01:46I'm sure you had to weigh, you know, factors in making this decision.
01:49But did you worry about what your decision would do to these kids, these kids where you've ripped away their counselors and social workers literally in the middle of the program?
02:02Do you worry about what's going to happen to those kids in Northwest Connecticut and kids all across the country who have lost access to their trusted adults?
02:09I certainly worry about mental health for children and adults all across the country.
02:14I certainly do.
02:14I guess I'm asking specific, you must have weighed this, I assume you weighed this when you made this extraordinary decision to shut down a billion dollars worth of mental health programming for kids.
02:25Did you worry about what you would do to those specific kids?
02:28Well, what we have to do, I think, and that's what our simplified funding program is going to do,
02:33is to put programs into a single grant that's going to the states to be determined how that money can be best used.
02:40But how did you weigh, how did you weigh the, I'm asking about this specific decision, how did you weigh the impact that, again, these kids in Northwest Connecticut,
02:48they literally say, this adult is the most important adult in my life.
02:53And you decided, you made a decision to shut down that program.
02:58And this can be replicated all over the country.
03:01How did you weigh the impact on those kids?
03:04It's a really cruel thing to do to those kids.
03:06So did you think about the impact on those kids?
03:09Well, I certainly can't evaluate every particular program in every school district across the state.
03:16There are some areas that need mental health more than there are others.
03:20And there were programs in the mental health program that did deal with DEI and with gender issues, et cetera.
03:28And it wasn't just about the kind of things that you're talking about.
03:31So in totality, as we look at mental health grants across the country, we have to make sure that those programs are being used to serve best in those communities.
03:41So, therefore, a governor or a principal or a state superintendent would have the best information relative to what is needed in that particular state.
03:49Yeah.
03:50We know what we need in Northwest Connecticut.
03:52And what we need is for the federal government not to rip funding away from these kids in need in the middle of the service program.
03:57Or to better allocate the dollars you have and provide those professionals across the state.
04:01Let me ask you another question.
04:04Obviously, we're trying to understand what the Department of Education is doing with respect to the threats you've made against institutions of higher education.
04:12In the letter that you sent to Harvard, demanding that they make certain changes, you told them that they had to end all of their diversity programs, but that they had to institute viewpoint diversity.
04:27That doesn't seem to make sense.
04:30How do you tell them to end all their diversity programs?
04:34And we assume that this is a mandate that you will make of other schools as well.
04:37How do you ask them to end diversity programs while instituting viewpoint diversity?
04:45Those seems to be totally contradictory.
04:47No.
04:47The diversity programs that we've asked and demanded to be eliminated were the DEI, where those programs actually were pitting one group against another.
04:58Isn't viewpoint diversity a diversity program?
05:01A viewpoint diversity is exchange of ideas that's actually better.
05:05Absolutely.
05:05Now, here, because Harvard only has 3% by its own numbers, 3% conservative faculty, do you think they are allowing enough of viewpoint diversity through that teaching?
05:15Where in the statute does it give you the ability to cut off federal funding for a university based upon your decision, your determination that they don't have viewpoint diversity?
05:25Can you cite to a statute an authority that Congress has given you to micromanage the viewpoint diversity of a college?
05:31Well, certainly, if, well, now let's back up.
05:35Well, no, no, no, I think that's really important.
05:37No, no, no, I'm going to answer your question.
05:39Can you cite a statute?
05:41Because you can't cut off funding for universities unless you have a statutory authorization to do so.
05:46So what statute gives you the right to tell any university that they have to have a certain mixture of viewpoints?
05:53So here's what happened with Harvard.
05:56It's a pretty simple thing.
05:57I don't mean to be, I don't mean to provide a, being hostile to Harvard, but I think you have to say the statute.
06:04The statute is Title VI.
06:05These were civil rights violations.
06:07That is why we filed a case and defunded or stopped defunding for a while for Harvard as well as we did Columbia.
06:12And in that conversation with them, we talked about different things that they should do coming back to the table to make their programming better.
06:21The president of Columbia absolutely indicated, as well as the president of Harvard, that they needed to do things on their campus to eliminate anti-Semitism.
06:30That was kind of the crux of what brought us into talking to the different universities.
06:34And then we sat down with them to say, OK, these are other issues that you need to address on your campus because you do receive federal funding.
06:42And under federal funding, if you are breaking the law, which they did under Title VI.
06:47I know, I don't understand any conception of civil rights law to give you the authorization to micromanage viewpoint diversity on campus.
06:55That's, that's not authorized under the civil rights title provided to you by the United States Congress.
