Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said Tuesday that all schools, including private schools, receiving federal dollars must abide by federal law, but she dodged specific questions about whether she would protect students who were subjected to discrimination based on their religion or sexual orientation.

“Let me be clear: Schools that receive federal funds must follow federal law,” DeVos said. “Period.”

At issue is the president’s fiscal 2018 budget request, which includes an array of school choice proposals – $1 billion boost to Title I funding for school districts that allow students to use the money at the public school of their choice, $168 million increase for charter schools, and $250 million for a new federal private school voucher program.

DeVos said during the Senate Appropriations Committee's hearing on the administration budget that the proposed voucher program is hypothetical and could take any form. But its underlying purpose, as outlined in language in the budget itself, is to allow students to use federal dollars to attend private schools – including a private religious schools.

The majority of the roughly 450,000 students currently enrolled in private schools through a private school choice program are enrolled in a religious school. But most federal civil rights laws, including Title IX and the Americans with Disabilities Act, provide accommodations for religious organizations so that they are allowed to adhere to their tenets despite running afoul of federal law.

The secretary made waves during her first round testifying on the budget before the House Appropriations Committee last month when she refused to commit to withholding federal funding from private schools that discriminate against students based on sexual orientation or religion.

Her response at the time – that such decisions should be left to states – elicited widespread condemnation from Democrats and civil rights groups.

Democrats on the committee pressed DeVos a number of times Tuesday to clarify her position, and each time she referred back to her assertion that “schools that receive federal funds must follow federal law” – a mantra she repeated dozens of times.

Notably, there are no federal civil rights statutes that explicitly protect LBGT students. The Obama administration sought to change that by, for example, issuing guidance that ensured transgender students have access to a bathroom that matches the gender with which they identify.

DeVos’ first major action as secretary was to withdraw that guidance.

“In areas where the law is unsettled, this department is not going to be issuing decrees," DeVos said. “Congress and the Supreme Court have to decide that and settle.”

In one particularly testy exchange, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., charged that DeVos was refusing to answer a question about whether she would allow schools to discriminate on the basis of religion or sexual orientation.

“What you said earlier didn’t help us,” he said. “It is an area of unsettled law, but what I think you said is that where it is unsettled such discrimination will continue to be allowed under your program. If that is incorrect, please correct it for the record.”

When DeVos repeated her comments about how schools receiving federal dollars will be held to federal law, Merkley shouted: “I think that it’s important for the public to know, today, the secretary of education, before this committee, refused to affirm she would put forward a program that would ban discrimination based on LGBTQ status of students or would ban discrimination based on religion.”