Billie Jean King blasts "white, suburban girls" Title IX protections, DeVos slams Biden administration changes

AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File

Today is the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. The federal civil rights law was passed during the Nixon administration. Team Biden wants to make a change to the wording of the law, replacing the word “sex” with either “gender” or “gender identity.” Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke out against such a change.

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Betsy DeVos cites a potential slippery slope here. Last week in Fairfax, Virginia, the school board voted to increase punishments for students for misgendering their classmates.

DeVos, who as education secretary wrote that Title IX’s sex-based protections were sticking by the definitions of “biological sex, male or female,” said the expansion of the word would be a “bridge too far.”

“That they would attempt to expand the definition of biological sex through a rulemaking process, it really is a bridge too far,” she said. “And I hope that, and I trust that many people will raise their voices if what is rumored to be true actually unfolds.”

“I do think some of these developments are very concerning,” DeVos agreed.

“They’re also getting a ton of pushback from people who are concerned about protecting women’s sports in particular, and protecting the very important due process protections that we ensured were a part of the whole Title IX requirements for how institutions must handle these issues,” she added.

If Biden’s rules take effect, due process protections will come into play. DeVos released a rule giving students accused of secual harassment more opportunity to defend themselves. Harassment must be proven to be severe and pervasive. The left never approved of that approach, coming down on the side of young women making such claims. What about young men falsely accused of sexual harassment? They were not afforded a presumption of innocence. Biden wants to go back to the days of the Obama administration and back to less protections for young men.

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DeVos’ guidance replaced that of the Obama administration’s, which, in a 2011 Dear Colleague letter, outlined for schools how to conduct Title IX proceedings. The Obama administration required universities to investigate nearly all complaints of sexual misconduct, no matter how long ago they had allegedly occurred. It also strongly discouraged schools from “allowing the parties personally to question or cross-examine each other during the hearing.”

“We went methodically through constructing a rule that very clearly sets up a framework that’s fair, that’s balanced, that respects the rights of both individuals in a party with an issue,” she said.

DeVos is right to be concerned about the far-left tendencies of the Biden administration. Many lives were destroyed by phony charges and the assumption of guilt before actual facts came out.

Meanwhile, both Kamala Harris and Jill Biden were busy celebrating Title IX’s 50th anniversary yesterday. Kamala’s surprise appearance at an event on the campus of American University for D.C. middle schoolers. It was a field day event and Kamala and her husband Doug surprised the students with a visit. Things got a little embarrassing for the vice-president (shocker, I know). Wearing stiletto heels, she went out on the gym’s basketball court and tried to make a basket. It took six tries but she finally managed to do it. Her husband finally advised her to bend her knees when she shot the basketball and that seems to have worked. Aren’t stiletto heels hard on basketball courts?

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Something weird happened after that. Mediaite went off on Kamala’s press secretary for her spin on Kamala’s basketball skills. I can only assume it’s all in lighthearted fun but how knows?

Kirsten Allen, the press secretary for Vice President Kamala Harris, spread North Korean-style disinformation on Twitter Wednesday.

The representative for the vice president claimed her boss hit “nothing but net” in a video featuring Harris shooting a basketball that quite obviously rattled into the basket instead.

“North Korean-style misinformation” is a harsh charge. And, given that the Biden administration is always trying to look for ways to blame misinformation or disinformation by its opponents for its failures, including setting up not one but two outlets to monitor Americans and their use of free speech, holding Allen accountable may be appropriate, even for a dumb tweet. It’s quite a blistering article.

Jill Biden joined Billie Jean King for a State Department-sponsored event at D.C.’s Capital One Arena. Billie Jean said that Title IX must pay more attention to ‘girls of color, girls with disibilities, trans athletes and all LGBTQ+ youth’ because its “primary beneficiaries” are white suburban girls. Wow.

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‘Fifty years, Title IX created space for for girls and women to be more. To be bigger and brighter and stronger and smarter and more capable and couragous,’ Dr. Biden said. ‘It’s made our schools and our colleges become more fair.’

‘Title IX is who we are as a nation,’ the first lady, who is a community college professor, told the crowd.

King urged the government to ensure schools are complying with Title IX.

‘The primary benficiaries of Title IX have been white, suburban girls,’ the tennis star said.

‘Let’s use this milestone anniversary to reenergize our focus on strengthening and advancing equity and opportunity for all girls and women – but espeically those who have been left behind by the law, including girls of color, girls with disibilities, trans athletes and all LGBTQ+ youth,’ King continued.

‘We have to look forward,’ she added.

Jill Biden’s speeches usually sound lame enough but Billie Jean’s may have been the winner of that category Wednesday. Especially at a time when female high school and college athletes are finding themselves competing with transgender women. Those women aren’t being given special considerations. They are being canceled.

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