New Rule on Title IX a license for Ryan Walters, others, to be so fragile and weak
So last Friday the U.S. Department of Education released what it’s calling the Final Rule pertaining to Title IX.
Title IX, as you may know, is the policy originally signed into law by none other than Richard Nixon, designed to guarantee equal educational programs, opportunities and activities for all students, male and female, a landmark law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.
For many of us, most conspicuously, we’ve recognized the effects of Title IX in athletics.
It’s why slow-pitch softball remains a varsity high school sport even though it doesn’t exist as a collegiate sport. It’s why Oklahoma introduced a women’s rowing program before the 2008-09 academic year. It’s why women’s collegiate ice hockey has exploded and girls and women’s wrestling is on its way.
Because football teams are so large, it takes additional girls and women’s varsity programs to make up the opportunity difference.
Right now, for instance, there are 10 varsity women’s sports and nine varsity men’s sports over which Sooner athletic director Joe Castiglione keeps watch.
Also, women’s programs often come with more scholarships than their men’s counterparts.
For example:
Men’s tennis: 4.5
Women’s tennis: 8
Men’s golf: 4.5
Women’s golf: 6
Baseball: 11.7
Softball: 12
Men’s volleyball: 4.5
Women’s volleyball: 12
Men’s gymnastics: 6.3
Women’s gymnastics: 12
Women’s rowing: 20
Men’s rowing: 0 (not an NCAA varsity sport)
All in an effort to even things up because Division I football programs, or what are now called BCS programs, award 85 scholarships.
But Title IX is far more than that, guaranteeing equal opportunity for girls and boys, women and men, in all academic settings. And, mostly about that, the Final Rule on Title IX, offers at least once language change bound to garner attention.
Here it is:
The final rule protects all students and employees from all sex discrimination prohibited under Title IX, including by restoring and strengthening full protection from sexual violence and other sex-based harassment. The rule clarifies the steps a school must take to protect students, employees, and applicants from discrimination based on pregnancy or related conditions. And the rule protects against discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.
“Gender identity,” you say?
So, who do you think lost his mind when the Final Rule was released.
Ryan Walters, of course.
Walters is our state superintendent of public instruction. I just hate writing his title before his name because he literally superintends no public instruction, all the while offering horrible headaches for actual public instructors.
Here’s a piece of Walters’ memo, in response to the Final Rule, sent to superintendents across the state.
“This re-definition could prohibit single-sex extracurriculars, including athletics, scholarship programs, locker rooms, bathrooms, and any other activity or space that is exclusive to one sex. Additionally, these rules could turn the act of not using preferred pronouns into a Title IX violation, which would be a clear violation of the First Amendment.
“I believe these rule changes are illegal and unconstitutional. They violate the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedures Act, and longstanding civil rights protections for women and girls. The USDE has not been given the legislative or judicial authority to redefine “sex” …
“Please do not make any district policy changes based on the new Title IX regulations. These federal rule changes are illegal and making policy changes before the courts come to a definitive ruling on the legality of these rules could put your district out of compliance with other current and legal state and federal statute.”
Yet, even if that sounds quasi-reasonable, Walters then took to KOCO-TV, Oklahoma City channel 5 in a pre-cable world, and said, in part, this, as reported by The Oklahoman’s Murray Evans.
“There’s boys and there’s girls. We want to protect girls’ sports. We know there’s two genders … We’re not going to allow a boy to go into the girls’ bathroom because they claim to identify as a girl that day. It endangers girls.”
So there you go, communicating by memo with district superintendents, Walters sounds conservative without sounding ridiculous — well, all but the pronoun part — yet communicating broadly, over the air, he hops right back into the dumb demagoguery he can’t help but spout.
One observation:
Yes, the Final Rule will likely find its way into the courts and, once there, perhaps judges who’d prefer have no opinion on the intersection between gender identity and sexual discrimination might still rule the U.S. Education Department is not allowed to make new law and shoehorning gender identity into Title IX is precisely that.
A second observation:
Who cares?
“There’s boys and there’s girls.”
Really? Thanks Ryan.
Way to be helpful.
Tell me, why are you and people like you so freaking riled up it?
What’s the harm in young people, or any people, defining themselves in accordance with how they feel inside their very own body?
Are they hurting you?
Are they hurting anybody?
Because that’s the thing and Walters is not alone. Tens and tens of millions of Americans may not only feel as he projects to feel, but also feel as strongly as he projects himself to feel about it.
Why?
Are they so uncomfortable in their own skin they’re afraid they’ll combust upon witnessing somebody comfortable or brave enough in theirs to proclaim their truth?
Are they so dense they can’t imagine their own paradigm, their own truth, might not be everybody’s? And are they then so crushed to learn it’s not they must vilify, bully and topple others in a desperate attempt to not be miserable themselves?
Are they so impossibly fragile in their apoplectic God fearing existence they can’t let those not be like them just be?
Are they just so afraid … of what? … they must make others afraid, too?
The New Rule might not ultimately become the New Rule without new legislation from Congress and, maybe, that’s the way the system ought to work.
Yay, federalism.
Yet, it’s clear those raging against it like the nation’s on fire and young people thinking for themselves can’t be tolerated are the same types of folks who couldn’t deal with race in the 60s and 70s, homosexuality in the 80s and 90s and gender identity now.
They always lose.
And make it hell on everybody until they do.