Department of Education
Description
Event Involvements
Events with structured involvement data
The Federal Department of Education is invoked by Ritchie as a symbol of federal overreach (teaching Esperanto, 'Eskimo poetry'), used as a foil to justify devolving control to states and communities in education policy.
Represented rhetorically through Ritchie's critique and caricatured examples.
Portrayed as an overbearing distant bureaucracy being challenged by a states'-rights narrative.
The department's invocation highlights public anxiety about federal mandates and becomes a rhetorical battleground for defining the scope of national authority.
Not depicted directly in the scene; internal dynamics are implied only as the target of political attack.
The Federal Department of Education is invoked negatively by Ritchie (as ordering 'Esperanto' or 'Eskimo poetry') and thereby becomes the specific institutional symbol of federal overreach being contested in the exchange.
Represented via Ritchie's caricatured critique and as a foil in Bartlet's rebuttal.
Portrayed as an overreaching bureaucracy by Ritchie and as a necessary administrative actor implied by Bartlet's defense of federal roles.
Its invocation crystallizes the debate about federal authority versus local control, reflecting how agencies become shorthand in political argument.
Not depicted onstage; the organization is an external target of rhetoric rather than an active participant.
Department of Education cited by Josh in his rote list of personnel at the youth-geared Rosslyn Town Hall, anchoring the event's chaotic normalcy before gunshots and underscoring trauma's broad institutional reach.
Via named staff participants invoked in memory
Peripheral bureaucratic presence subsumed by shooting trauma
Highlights federal machinery's vulnerability to violence
Department of Education personnel listed by Josh as geared toward youth at Rosslyn Town Hall, fleshing out the pre-shooting crowd and underscoring the event's routine political facade shattered by gunfire.
Via staff attendees invoked in recount
Subordinate to White House entourage; peripheral in trauma
Highlights federal bureaucracy's grassroots exposure
Related Events
Events mentioning this organization
In a tense hallway walk-and-talk, State Department official Russell Angler reveals to Josh Lyman that the 13-year-old Georgian killer is held provisionally at Rome's San …
In Toby's office, a State Department official intercepts him, bluntly questioning the Helsinki summit's viability amid Russian provocations like the Iran reactor deal. Toby pivots …