A panel of experts blasted President Joe Biden’s changes to Title IX, the rule meant to protect women’s sports in schools, at a panel this week.
Biden’s administration has announced changes to Title IX that would redefine “sex” in the long-standing federal rule to include sweeping protections for gay and transgender students. As a result, schools would be required to allow male athletes identifying as female to compete, use women’s facilities, and more or face losing federal funding.
The Heritage Foundation hosted an event on Thursday that had two panels with various guest speakers discussing the Biden administration’s rewrite of Title IX. The event was titled ‘Coming to a School Near You: Biden’s New Title IX Rule Puts Women, Children, Parents, and Free Speech on the Chopping Block’.
Senior Legal Fellow Sarah Parshall Perry gave opening remarks at the talk and introduced the first round of panelists.
“Sunday, we mark the passage of the 52nd anniversary of Title IX,” Perry said. “The federal law guaranteeing sex equality in all federally funded education programs.”
“The President and The Department of Education do not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the law that Congress passed by way of some bureaucratic cudgel or executive fiat, but that hasn’t prevented them from trying,” Perry continued. “With an impending enforcement date of August 1st, state officials, parents, thought leaders and litigators are pushing back.”
The Biden administration’s controversial Title IX changes are facing challenges nationwide, including a Kentucky Federal Judge who issued an injunction against the rules, as The Center Square previously reported.
The first round of speakers at the panel were the founder of Moms for Liberty Tiffany Justice, Independent Women’s Forum ambassador and former athlete Paula Scanlan, Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Díaz Jr., and Director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy Lindsey Burke.
“Moms and dads are horrified, Americans are in general,” Justice said. “I mean where did this come from, all of a sudden this is normal, that you’re going to tell kindergarten students that they may have been born in the wrong body? These are children that believe in Santa Claus. And I happen to think that more Americans would be upset about or aware of if teachers were going in and telling kids that Santa wasn’t real in kindergarten. And yet somehow, this can be taught in the classroom?”
Justice also referred to the changes to Title IX as “a real effort to drive a wedge between the parent and the child.”
Scanlan spoke about her experiences as a former NCAA athlete on a team with a transgender athlete amidst the changing Title IX rules.
“But what was unexpected was the lack of conversations,” Scanlan said. “As soon as we started raising concerns, they sent administrators from the athletic department and the LGBT center and counseling to sit us down and they told us that we were bigoted and hateful for objecting.”
Díaz referred to the changes surrounding Title IX rules as a “dystopia” at one point during the talk. He also emphasized the importance of “traditional” American families.
“We have to stop being polite about it,” Díaz said. “Because this is now you’re protecting the rights of people who have traditional values, of traditional families, of people who just want to raise their kid in the normal, old, American fashion.”
“They’re changing the culture and the fabric of our country, and we can’t allow them to do that.” Justice said.
The second group of speakers on the panel discussed several legal aspects of Title IX, including the legal analysis of those opposing the Biden administration’s changes to Title IX being implemented.
The speakers at this panel were Executive Director of Southeastern Legal Foundation Kimberly Hermann, Attorney General of Louisiana Liz Murrill, and Solicitor General of Montana Christian Corrigan.
Hermann discussed how the Title IX rules regarding sexual harassment may apply to children.
“And so, when a child goes into school, and it could even be their teacher,” Hermann said. “Let’s say their teacher, they have a male teacher that decides they are identifying as a woman, and that child does not want to call the male teacher a she because this child believes in biological sex, this child can now be brought up for sexual harassment charges.”
Murrell also spoke about possible negative impacts of the Title IX rules on young children, saying that children today are “being propagandized from a very very young age to suspend what is reality to them in a very clear way and not believe what they see to be true.”
Corrigan mentioned the importance of parental rights amidst the possibility of changes to Title IX being implemented.
“I do think that the parental rights aspect is certainly very important,” Corrigan said.
