Title IX was signed into law on June 23, 1972. Fifty-three years ago today. The law prohibits sex discrimination in any educational activity or program that receives federal funding.
In recent years, Title IX has become a major component of the debate regarding transgender athletes in women’s sports. The Biden administration tried to rewrite the legislation to allow the basis of “sex” to encompass the concept of “gender identity.” Doing so would have allowed men who masquerade as women to use women’s spaces and compete on women’s teams.
While President Donald Trump signed an executive order ensuring that Title IX protects biological women from male athletes, some schools have flouted this.
This month, parental rights organization Defending Education (DE) filed a civil rights complaint against Smith College, one of the country’s oldest all-female schools.
According to DE, Smith’s “admission policy appears to violate Title IX” and “also violates various Presidential Executive Orders on policies related to sex discrimination in federally funded programs.”
This is because Smith has an “inclusive” admissions policy that allows transgenders to apply for admission. Additionally, the school gives spots on teams to these men who pretend to be women.
“Ironically, in what appears to be yet another exercise in sex discrimination, Smith admits natal men who identify as women but does not admit natal women who identify as men,” DE wrote in a press release about the complaint.
That’s not all. DE wrote that Smith maintains a “Bias Response Team” dedicated to investigating and punishing students who disagree with their woke gender and sex policies.
“On the anniversary of Title IX, it bears remembering that Title IX was passed after an extensive campaign from women's rights activists and a federal court decision holding that high school girls were not entitled to the same athletic opportunities as boys,” Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president of DE, said.
“Yet today, some institutions of higher education, including those that hold themselves out to be single-sex, appear to adhere to the notion that sex is fungible – even something that arch feminist Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote was false. Our organization is keenly interested in ensuring equality of educational opportunity for all students, and it is our hope that when assessing the 'female-only' policies of colleges like Smith, the Department of Education will take a closer look at that college's possible attempts to rewrite Title IX, and allow transgender-identified males access to women's-only spaces and admission slots,” she continued.
“Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. Today and always, Title IX is worth celebrating, protecting, and enforcing so that men and women can truly be equal – and equally protected – in American education,” Perry concluded.