Proposed changes 'obviously' violate the 'key' point of Title IX: protecting women– Dr. Virginia Foxx explains

In an exclusive interview with Campus Reform, Chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Dr. Virginia Foxx, said that the push to include biological males in women’s sports violates the spirit of Title IX and the spirit of equality under the law.

More than fifty years after the passage of Title IX protecting women’s rights in education, the Department of Education (DOEd) is seeking to change the language of the law to protect gender identity as opposed to biological females.

The Biden Administration announced in April a proposed change to the language of Title IX requiring schools to allow students at all levels to participate in sports based on their gender identity as opposed to biological sex.

“One-size-fits-all policies that categorically ban transgender students from participating in athletics consistent with their gender identity across all sports, age groups, and levels of competition would not satisfy the proposed regulation,” the DOEd stated.

But Foxx contends that such changes “obviously” violate the spirit of Title IX, which was to protect legal equality for biological women.

“I have always wanted women to be treated equally under the law,” Foxx said. “That is sort of key: treated equally under the law. Men and women are not the same. We are not the same. God created us differently, to complement each other, I believe, but under the law, women should be treated the same. And I think that concept gets lost a lot of times.”

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Foxx, who started her career as an academic administrator when Title IX first took effect, explained that although the law applies to all sex-based discrimination and harassment, female-only sports were a significant factor in its creation.

“Since Title IX was enacted [51] years ago, female participation in sports [has] increased 1057% at the high school level and 614% at the post-secondary level, so it’s obvious Title IX worked,” Foxx explained.

Under the new proposed DOEd regulations, however, “it would be particularly difficult for a school to justify excluding students immediately following elementary school from participating consistent with their gender identity.” “[I]n some cases,” the DOEd would allow high schools and colleges to place sex-related participation criteria on certain sports.

In response to this new rule, the House passed H.R. 734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which prohibits schools from denying sports opportunities to biological females in favor of biological males based upon gender self-identification, as Campus Reform previously reported.

“All I think most women want is for Title IX to be protected,” Foxx explained, noting that H.R. 734 was not “some drastic kind of change.”

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“When you have men participating against women, it’s a violation of Title IX,” Foxx declared.

Foxx has received criticism from political opponents saying that fighting the “culture war” distracts from salient policy problems that impact daily life. Although she agrees to a certain extent, Foxx contends that “the culture war is in some ways at the basis of maintaining our society.”

“We cannot destroy the family. We cannot destroy essential roles [about] who we are as male and female. It’s truly puzzling in many ways to most people as to why the Democrats emphasize these things, but I see it and I think many others see it as a way to tear down our culture altogether.”

The public comment period on the Federal Register for the DOEd proposed rule change closes on May 6.

Follow Gabrielle M. Etzel on Twitter.