With Biden's rewrite of Title IX, women's equality is a thing of the past
Last week, President Biden’s Department of Education released new guidelines for Title IX, the 1972 civil rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program — elementary, secondary or post-secondary — that receives federal money of any kind. “Sex” is now redefined as “gender identity,” thereby protecting the rights of “trans women” (i.e., males who identify as women) to enter female-only spaces and join female-only organizations. Meanwhile, accusations of sexual assault against male students or faculty members can now be adjudicated by campus bureaucrats with no regard to due process protections for the accused.
These outrageous rewrites to Title IX are, each in their own way, an unforgivable affront against women’s equality.
Under this law, any male claiming to be female will be permitted to enter girls’ and women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, and to participate in women’s teams and organizations. A female student who objects to admitting a male to a team or organization intended for women, or who personally feels uncomfortable in a locker room with a male, will now be faced not just with social stigma but with potential legal repercussions for her school, team or organization.
The failure of this new iteration of Title IX to take cognizance of women’s physical vulnerability is tantamount to the erasure of women under the law. It is a bastardization of the law’s original intent: to grant female students equal access to educational, athletic and professional opportunities. Moreover and more importantly, it is a rejection of biological and moral truth in favor of the faux-progressive misogyny that claims to protect women even as it eradicates our daughters’ basic rights.
While victimizing women with one hand, this rewrite of Title IX “protects” female students unto paternalistic infantilization — and the consequent victimization of men — with the other.
Under the new guidelines, colleges are permitted to reinstate the kangaroo courts that fail to offer male students accused of sexual assault the rights of due process. Far from actually protecting women from sexual assault — an act that would be laudable but which campus leftists would never do because it would involve acknowledging (a) that women and men exist as biological realities, not subjective identities, and (b) that most women and most men relate to sex differently — these sham “trials” of accused men utterly fail to deliver justice. By turning the adjudication of sexual assault accusations on campus over to our universities’ ideologically blinded bureaucrats, Biden’s version of Title IX both allows some percentage of rapists to avoid the prison time they deserve and subjects some percentage of innocent (and disproportionately minority) male students to academic and social penalties they do not deserve, should the case be one involving “Sunday morning regret” in which women who consented to sex but wish they hadn’t try to enact justice on behalf of their feelings.
Meanwhile, the insistence of many on the left that we should “believe all women” — in practice, that a woman’s perceived lack of agency to say “no” to sex amounts to a man’s legal (not just moral) guilt — relies on a notion of female purity of heart and mind that assumes grown women merit the protection due little girls. That is, that we are not just physically weaker than men, but intellectually and emotionally weaker as well.
In the United States, the primary legacy of such infantilizing paternalism toward adults whose femaleness is assumed to exempt them from moral doubt is the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century lynching of Black men falsely accused of sexual assault by consenting white women (a la “To Kill A Mockingbird”).
It is not easy to roll back women’s rights, due process for all, and the color-blind application of justice at the same time. But Biden’s Title IX has managed. So much for progress.
Elizabeth Grace Matthew is a visiting fellow at Independent Women’s Forum. Her writing on education, culture, politics, and religion has appeared in USA Today, Law and Liberty, Deseret News, The Dispatch, and The Bulwark.
Date: | |
Tag: | Joe Biden |
Filter
-
7 things from women's football: The WSL title race is back on! Barça, Bayern seal titles
Arsenal upset Man City to give Chelsea control of the WSL title race, while Bayern and Barcelona both confirmed their domestic success.ESPN - Sports -
Nebraska governor says state 'will not comply' with new Title IX rules
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) said his state “will not comply” with recent changes to Title IX by the Biden administration, The Nebraska Examiner reported Friday. “Protecting our kids and women’s athletics is my duty,” Pillen said in a statement, ...The Hill - Politics -
Changes to Title IX sacrifice due process at colleges for administrative convenience
Colleges and universities should be wary of accepting the invitation to trade due process — a cornerstone of our legal system — for administrative efficiency.The Hill - Politics -
Declan Rice drives Arsenal past Bournemouth to maintain title push
Mikel Arteta had wanted something less stressful than Arsenal’s previous home win over Bournemouth and he got his wish. In March of last year, his team had needed a 97th-minute Reiss Nelson goal to complete a wild 3-2 victory from 2-0 down.. Here, ...The Guardian - World - Premier League -
Will Nikki Haley do the right thing and endorse Joe Biden?
Haley stands as the last major contender from this year’s GOP primaries to refuse to bow down and endorse former President Donald Trump.The Hill - Politics -
USC women win 4th beach volleyball title in row
Top-ranked USC won its fourth straight beach volleyball championship with a 3-0 sweep over No. 2 UCLA on Sunday.ESPN - Sports - College Football -
Many Florida women can't get abortions past 6 weeks. Where else can they go?
Since Florida enacted a six-week abortion ban, clinics in several other Southern and mid-Atlantic states have sprung into actionABC News - Health - Florida -
Many Florida women can't get abortions past 6 weeks. Where else can they go?
Since Florida enacted a six-week abortion ban, clinics in several other Southern and mid-Atlantic states have sprung into actionABC News - Top stories - Florida -
Equal justice is under threat in Louisiana
Don’t look now, but there’s a power grab in Louisiana, putting public defense into the hands of a single person.The Hill - Politics -
The One Thing Holding Back Heat Pumps
It’s not the technology itself. It’s that we don’t yet have enough trained workers to install heat pumps for full-tilt decarbonization.Wired - Tech
More from The Hill
-
CDC recommends PPE for livestock workers as bird flu risk remains low
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday asked state public health officials to make personal protective equipment (PPE) available to livestock workers to combat the spread of bird flu. The risk of bird flu to the general ...The Hill - Politics -
Ole Miss fraternity kicks out member accused of making ape-like sounds toward Black protester
A University of Mississippi fraternity has removed a member who was accused of harassing a Black protester at the college’s pro-Palestine encampment by mimicking a monkey. Video of the protests went viral last week, showing a group of white men ...The Hill - Politics -
Trump says he'd be willing to go to jail over gag order violations
Former President Trump on Monday suggested he would be willing to go to jail over repeated violations of his gag order imposed by a New York judge. "This judge has given me a gag order and said you'll go to jail if you violate it,” Trump told ...The Hill - Politics - Donald Trump -
Xi Jinping visits a ‘Sinosceptic’ Europe
Domestic and international changes have created a much colder European environment for China.The Hill - Politics - China -
Florida Democrat deletes post after being 'called out' over stereotype
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) on Monday took down a social media post regarding South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s (R) meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after being accused of reinforcing the stereotype that Asians eat dogs. The remarks ...The Hill - Politics - Florida