How Did A Law Intended To Protect Women End Up Discriminating Against Women?
How Did A Law Intended To Protect Women End Up Discriminating Against Women?
The U.S. Supreme Court and Democratic Pres. Joe Biden reinterpreted the meaning of "sex" in Title IX to protect men who "identify" as women.
This year will mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which transformed the role of women in American society.
Most people know Title IX as the law that jump-started female athletics but it also required educational programs that receive federal funding to stop discriminating against women in admissions and hiring.
When Title IX was went into effect - June 23, 1972 - many colleges and universities did not offer any competitive female athletics, women faced strict quotas getting into professional schools, and many educational institutions had few, if any, female faculty members.
Title IX transformed American society for women.
So how did a law intended to protect women become a law that women say discriminates against women?
There can be no question that in 1972, the definition of “sex” referred exclusively to “women.” Literally no one argued that “sex” included gays or biological men who “identify” as women.
But everything changed two years ago.
U.S. Supreme Court
As too often is the case, the U.S. Supreme Court is at the heart of the storm.
On June 15, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a split 6-3 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that held “sex” discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. includes discrimination based on gay and transgender status.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion, said when an employer fires an employee for being gay or transgender, the employer fires that person "for traits or actions [the employer] would not have questioned in members of a different sex… Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision; exactly what Title VII forbids."
The female justices on the Court - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - all voted with the majority. You could say they made the difference.
President Joe Biden
On Jan. 20, 2021, Pres. Biden took office and signed Executive Order 13988, requiring that “[a]ll persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Biden maintained this principle was reflected in the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and in federal civil rights laws, including Title IX. He cited the Supreme Court’s holding in Bostock.
Bostock addressed Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination, but the feds quickly linked it to Title IX.
On March 26, 2021, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pamela S. Karlan of the U.S. Justice Dept’s Attorney for Civil Rights issued a memorandum to federal civil rights offices and agency general counsels extending the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling to Title IX. It was now a civil rights violation to treat men who “identify” as women differently than biological women.
On June 22, 2021, the U.S. Department of Education issued a notice of interpretation clarifying that “[c]onsistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling and analysis in Bostock, the Department [of Education] interprets Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ to encompass discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.” Thereafter, schools and colleges risked federal funding if they failed to accord trans females the same rights as biological females.
Today, biological men who say they “identify” as women can compete in women’s athletics, use women’s bathrooms, go to women’s domestic violence shelters, women’s prisons, etc.
No more spaces are reserved exclusively for biological women.
Almost every state has introduced legislation to protect female athletes and 16 states have actually passed laws to protect female athletes.
Even the NYT admits it…
The New York Times, a bastion of the far left in recent years, today, in decidedly muted terms, acknowledged the unfairness of transgender females participating in women’s athletics.
The Times writes that “records for elite adult male swimmers are on average 10 percent to 12 percent faster than the records of elite female swimmers, an advantage that has held for decades.” The male advantage is denser muscles, broader shoulders, bigger hands, longer torsos and greater lung and heart capacity. “[P]eer reviewed studies show that even after testosterone suppression, top trans women retain a substantial edge when racing against top biological women,” the article states.
True feminists (as opposed the faux feminists at the Women’s Sports Foundation and the National Organization for Women) have argued for years that there is a valid distinction between “sex” and “gender identity.”
Canadian author and feminist Meaghan Murphy literally was banned from Twitter for life in 2016 because she said that men are not women.
In a recent post, Murphy says feminists who warned about the dangers of gender identity ideology “were actively silenced: blacklisted by the media, ostracized by the left, and no-platformed at universities. Those of us who did speak out were vilified and harassed. Our events were cancelled, venues pulled out, and we were met with protesters at every attempt to organize, meet, or discuss gender identity ideology and the threat to women and girls in particular. Our articles were pulled, as were our book deals.”
Now that The New York Times effectively has acknowledged the idiocy of the U.S. Supreme Court’s unilateral decision and Pres. Joe Biden’s ill-considered dictum, will Twitter invite Murphy back to the platform?