Hawkeye Reporter

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), and 19 Republican colleagues issued a clear rebuke of U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona’s proposed changes to Title IX and condemned the Biden administration’s plan to force schools to allow biological males to compete against women in sports.

Senator Ernst has been a vocal advocate of preserving Title IX and recently joined Riley Gaines, a former 12x All-American swimmer at the University of Kentucky, in urging the Biden administration to protect the integrity of women’s sports.

“Congress made clear that its intention in passing Title IX was to prohibit discrimination against women participating fully in all aspects of athletic and academic opportunity at institutions that received federal financial assistance,” wrote the senators. “This proposed rule uses weakly-associated case law and polarizing social concepts to broaden the definition of women and girls to include individuals who identify as women, and in so doing, the intent of the law is destroyed, and women are marginalized yet again.”

Background:

The public comment comes just weeks after Senator Ernst called on the Senate to pass Republicans’ effort to preserve Title IX protections for female athletes and ensure fair, safe competition in women’s sports across the country. Democrats in the Senate blocked the swift passage of the legislation, even though a clear majority of Americans support its provisions. 

Specifically, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act:

• Ensures Title IX provisions treat gender as “recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
• Bans recipients of federal funding from operating, sponsoring, or facilitating athletic programs that permit a male to participate in a women’s sporting event.

The full comment submitted by the senators can be found here.

Original source can be found here.