Title ix

Tuesday

David Sypher Jr.

Penn finally accepts that Lia Thomas is a biological man

The University of Pennsylvania just reversed course on one of the most controversial sports decisions in recent memory. After a federal investigation, the university agreed to restore titles and records to biological female swimmers who were forced to compete against Lia Thomas – a transgender-identifying male athlete. In addition, Penn will send apology letters to the affected athletes and adopt sex-based definitions going forward, limiting women’s sports and facilities to biological females.It’s being hailed in some circles as a win for common sense and women’s rights. And it is. But let’s be clear: this was not a moral epiphany. It was a forced retreat.Penn, like many elite institutions, didn’t arrive at this outcome willingly.

Lia Thomas

Thursday

Amber Duke

How Biden is planning to up-end Title IX

Earlier this month, Biden’s Department of Education finally submitted its proposed Title IX rule changes over to the White House for review. Biden’s DoE has been hard at work to unravel Title IX rules made by its secretary under the Trump administration, Betsy DeVos. DeVos, you might recall, had enshrined all sorts of due process protections for students accused of sexual misconduct on campus amid a spate of high-profile false accusations.

Tuesday

Elaine Mallon

Inside Oberlin College’s failed auto-da-fé

The end of Kim Russell’s career coaching lacrosse at Oberlin College can be traced back to a few words posted to her private Instagram on March 20, 2022. Russell reshared a post congratulating Emma Weyant as the real winner of that year’s NCAA women’s 500-yard freestyle event, though the NCAA record books say Lia Thomas, whose feminine quality seems to be shoulder-length hair, finished 1.75 seconds faster. “What do you believe? I can’t be quiet on this,” Kim wrote in her post. “I’ve spent my life playing sports, starting & coaching sports programs for girls and women.” Russell believes in many things. She believes in practicing mindfulness, intuitive coaching and the use of coconut oil as body lotion.

Oberlin

Sunday

Bill Kauffman

How the NCAA twisted women’s sports

This has been a banner, or perhaps baneful, year for women’s intercollegiate sports, what with trash-talking basketballers, record TV ratings and biological men swimming in the distaff pool. But the focus on celebrity female athletes only emphasizes the degree to which the NCAA has twisted women’s sports into a depressing duplicate of the Y-chromosome side of the street. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The pioneers of women’s collegiate — not necessarily intercollegiate — athletics conceived and promoted a healthy and democratic ideal that was antithetical to what they saw as the elitist, corrupted and sloth-inducing male version.

sports

Wednesday

Gilbert T. Sewall

Title IX and the Biden administration’s trans frenzy

What possesses a great nation’s government to suddenly make transsexuality the center of its civil rights, education and juvenile health agenda? A recent White House proposal to adjust Title IX would make across-the-board school and college sports bans a civil rights violation. Sidestepping any conclusive ruling, the Supreme Court the same day allowed a twelve-year-old West Virginia transgender girl to continue competing on her middle school track and cross-country teams while legal battles work their way through lower courts. About two-thirds of Americans oppose transgendered athletics. Critics argue that they destroy women’s sports and mock Title IX’s original intent.

trans frenzy title ix

Monday

Peter Van Buren

The coming Supreme Court win for religious rights

The Supreme Court is poised to grant a victory to religious conservatives via the First Amendment in blocking recognition of an LGBT club at Yeshiva University. Yeshiva is a Jewish law school which objects to the club on religious grounds. This is important news for other religious schools across America facing similar legal challenges. Though the Court as an intermittent step referred the case back to the lower courts as Yeshiva University v. YU Pride Alliance, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Comey Barrett made no bones in their dissent that they would stand with the First Amendment when the full case comes before the Supreme Court, as it is expected the lower courts will demand Yeshiva recognize and fund the club.

Alito

Friday

Ben Domenech

Title IX reminds us that the cultural left will lose

This week marked the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX, the Richard Nixon-era policy designed to move toward more equitable treatment of the sexes in higher education. It should have been an unequivocally celebratory moment for advocates of women's sports in America. Instead, the Title IX festivities were uncomfortable, newly complicated by the extremism of woke leftists, who are attempting to redefine what it means to be a woman. The most prominent example of this over the past year has been Lia Thomas, whose performance as a biological male competing against biological females in NCAA swimming became a national story.

men UPenn Swimmer Lia Thomas (Getty Images)