New York, NY — The Manhattan Institute's director of constitutional studies, Ilya Shapiro, responds to the Biden administration's new Title IX provisions:
"There’s a reason this new Title IX rule was delayed again and again: the Biden administration knew that it was stretching the law beyond its breaking point. At a time when American higher education is in crisis, with a drastic loss in popular confidence, this new rule adds fuel to that fire. The administration expands Title IX to cover an undefined 'gender identity' despite the law’s clear understanding of sex as biological and binary—regardless whether you care most about statutory text or purpose, or even legislative history. Name-checking the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision and leaving unresolved (for now) the issue of biological males playing in women’s sports doesn’t save the rule.
"As bad as the redefinition of 'sex' is, what’s arguably even worse about the new rule is its subversion of due process and free speech. The Kafka-esque inquisitions that were the hallmark of Obama-era governance will now return with a vengeance. And bloated educational bureaucracies will waste no time in investigating and disciplining students and faculty for politically incorrect speech that now runs afoul of expansive, nebulous, and shape-shifting definitions of sex-based harassment.
"All of this is the continuation of the subversion of the core mission of schools and universities to seek truth and develop human knowledge, and of classical liberal values like free speech, due process, and equality under the law. This rule aims to inculcate radical change in American society. It’s bad law, bad policy, and a continuation of a broader shift from education to activism."
- Ilya Shapiro is director of constitutional studies and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Please direct all media inquiries to press officer Nic Abouchedid at nabouchedid@manhattan.institute
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