Bennett, William J. (1943-)

William J. Bennett is a political commentator, best-selling author, and popular radio show host who has held important government positions, including chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and secretary of education during the Reagan administration. His tenure in the Department of Education was marked by controversy over what was widely perceived as his opposition to bilingual education. He is also known for his role as “Drug Czar” under the George H. W. Bush administration and for his current status as unofficial moral authority of the Republican Party.

William John Bennett was born on July 31, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, to a banker father and medical secretary mother. He attended Williams College in Massachusetts, where he received a BA in philosophy in 1965. He would go on to receive a PhD in political philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970, followed by a JD degree from Harvard Law School in 1971. Bennett remained mostly in higher education throughout the decade, serving as assistant to the president of Boston University from 1972 to 1976; executive director, president, and director of the National Humanities Center in North Carolina from 1976 to 1981; and associate professor at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1979 to 1981.

During the 1980s, Bennett emerged as one of the nation's most prominent and controversial political figures. In 1981, President Reagan named Bennett, then a registered Democrat (he joined the Republican Party in 1986), as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. As chairman, Bennett moved the agency in a more conservative direction, attacking multiculturalism and affirmative action. In 1985, Reagan appointed Bennett secretary of education, the beginning of a volatile tenure in the department. As secretary, Bennett advocated cuts in financial assistance for higher education, emphasized “character” education, and urged the passage of a constitutional amendment that would allow prayer in schools. He also asked for congressional enactment of a school voucher program, allowing children in failing schools to transfer to other schools.

Bennett also opened a national debate on bilingual education, claiming the high drop-out rate among English language learners (ELLs) was caused by the bilingual approach and the Title VII requirement that programs make some use of students' native languages and cultures. Bennett proposed the Bilingual Education Initiative in 1985, meant to spur “local flexibility” by allowing schools to spend federal funds on a wider variety of teaching methods rather than one prescribed method. Opponents viewed this move as a veiled attempt to push alternative instructional programs that used mostly English to instruct ELLs. Bennett pressed for changes in the 1988 version of the Bilingual Education Act that reflected his emphasis on the diversity of ELLs and approaches to their education. The rhetorical war initiated by Bennett's anti-bilingual education position, between bilingual educators who felt they were deliberately misled and federal officials who felt their motives had been maligned, would last until Bennett left office in 1988.

Bennett's time in the private sector would be brief. After leaving his post at the Department of Education, Bennett became president of the Madison Center, a public policy forum in Washington, D.C. Soon after George H. W. Bush was elected president, however, Bennett was named the nation's first director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or “drug czar,” a position he held from 1989 to 1990.

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