Biden Proposes Radical New Title IX Rules That Don’t Help Women – Opinion

Although President Joe Biden was positioned as unifier in his campaign, very little of what he says or does is. He offered radical new guidelines for Title IX Thursday, and it is not a surprise.

His administration is proposing new rules that would weaken due process for students accused of sexual misconduct, while also clarifying that Title IX’s protections against discrimination apply to sexual orientation and gender identity. The Department of Education’s website (pdf).

The Department therefore proposes that the current regulations should be amended to provide greater clarity regarding the scope of sex discrimination, including recipients’ obligations not to discriminate based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Title IX, which was adopted in 1972, prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation at schools that are federally funded. This statute says:

A person from the United States cannot be disqualified or denied Federal financial aid due to their sex.

Its main effect has been in women’s sports, whose popularity has exploded since Title IX was enacted. It’s downright creepy that a law designed to protect women is now being used to do the exact opposite—namely, to let biological males compete against females.

Although new rules regarding participation in sports will be issued at a later date, CNN seems to think that it’s already a done deal ((Impression mine).:

The new rules would clarify that Title IX’s protections against discrimination apply to sexual orientation and gender identity and The law would prohibit someone from being able to participate in activities or school programs that align with their gender identity..

If preventing someone from participating in an activity due to their “gender identity” is in violation of the law, that would mean schools must allow biological males to compete on women’s teams.

Biden applauded these new ideas in a statement

We have more to do. We look forward to the next fifty-years and I want to preserve this progress as well and work to attain full equality, dignity, inclusion, respect, and justice for American women, girls, LGBTQI+ Americans and students.

Prior to being approved, all new rules must be submitted for public comment. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Representative of the United States is currently expressing concern about these changes:

The Education Department’s new rules would also reverse policies that were made under Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, which expanded due process rights for students accused of sexual misconduct. Because students were being kicked out of school for being accused of harassment, or worse, of assaulting others, those rules were necessary. This article was taken from the 2020 New York Times.

However, enforcement of Title IX (the law) is becoming more contentious since guidance documents issued by the Obama administration in 2011 and 2014 advised schools to increase their investigations into misconduct and warn that they could face serious consequences if they fail to do so. Critics claimed that schools feel pressured to support the accused without providing sufficient rights. Numerous students won cases against colleges that violated their rights under Obama-era regulations.

But Biden isn’t interested in due process, and doesn’t even think the accused should get a hearing:

Biden Rules expand what constitutes harassment sexually and increase the number of incidents, like those that are not related to their educational programs, schools have an obligation to investigate. The rules would also make live hearings optional, no longer a requirement, and allow schools to employ a process that establishes the credibility of the parties and witnesses, though it doesn’t require cross-examination.

Sounds fair, right?

Title IX was a milestone for women’s sports, and for women’s rights. (Read RedState’s Jennifer Oliver O’Connell on what it meant to women.)  Now it is being used to promote activist agendas that don’t actually help women. It’s not hard to see where this is going—the Biden Administration is laying the groundwork for making it law that biological men be allowed to participate on women’s sports teams. Meanwhile, they’re trampling on the rights of the accused, who, in this country, are supposed to get due process. They’re not at school, it seems.

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