Joyce Krawiec serves in the North Carolina Senate. She represents Davie County and Forsyth County, NC. Christian, wife, mother, small business owner, and conservative.
It’s amazing how often a constituent will call me with an issue that is so far out that I immediately think it can’t possibly be true.
I assume it’s a social media post that has been repeated so much that people think it’s true. Often when I do research, I’ll discover that this far out “conspiracy” theory really is true. This happened again recently. A mother of a Piney Grove Elementary School student called my office with concerns she had about a notification received. I can’t remember the details, but it involved the school nutrition program. There appeared to be the possibility of losing funding for continuing the free and reduced meals program. Apparently, the Department of Agriculture had sent out notices that funds would be withheld from schools that do not comply with the Biden administration’s LGBT ideology.
The USDA has decided to interpret “the prohibition on discrimination based on sex found in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972” to include “discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” On Biden’s first day in office, he signed an executive order virtually changing the law and including these additional protections. States claim that the USDA’s interpretation of Title IX would cause states to lose federal funding for the National School Lunch Program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). More commonly known as food stamps. This program administers free and reduced cost lunches to 29.6 million children. Many states will be hit very hard over this new interpretation.
States are not laying down and rolling over. Twenty-two states have filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration. The states claim that this USDA guidance is another example of the administration’s “misinterpretation” of Title IX. Additional guidance requirements from the USDA state that “FNS nutrition assistance programs, state or local agencies, and their subrecipients” post a nondiscrimination statement in facilities.
The complaint argues “the old policy prohibited discrimination only ‘in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA,’ the new policy appears to refer to all programs as a whole.” The suit claims that this rule will irreparably harm the plaintiff states.
Title IX education amendment (1972) was put in place, originally, to protect girls’ sports. Any institution receiving federal funds could not exclude girls from sports programs. Since they could not compete with boys physically, girls’ sports teams were funded in our public institutions.
The change in policy immediately created a conflict with many state laws. Many states have laws requiring students to complete based on their biological sex. The reason, obviously, is to protect girls from competing against stronger boys. This gives girls a fair chance at competing.
For example, Tennessee is one of the plaintiff states. State law asserts that “a student’s gender for purposes of participation in a public middle school or high school interscholastic athletic activity or event must be determined by the student’s sex at the time of the student’s birth.” The state law also permits a right of action against any school allowing “a member of the opposite sex to enter a multi-occupancy restroom or changing facility while other persons are present.”
The lawsuit asks the court to also prohibit punishment against schools that “do not require employees or students to use a transgender individuals’ preferred pronouns,” “maintain athletic teams separated by biological sex.” It also asks that schools continue to assign students to teams based on their biological sex.
Let me get this straight. States that decide that biological boys are not allowed to compete against girls in sports, and bathrooms, locker rooms and showers, should not be shared with the opposite sex, will lose funding for students meal programs. This is how far the Biden administration is willing to go to force an agenda down the throats of the American people.
The Biden administration is attempting to use a Supreme Court decision regarding Title VII and civil rights to justify this “misinterpretation.” The decision referred to discrimination in employment law and Justice Gorsuch made that clear. He said, “this does not prejudge any such question” about “sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms and dress codes.”
The attorney general of Indiana, who is one of the leaders of the effort, said “We all know the Biden administration is dead-set on imposing an extreme left-wing agenda on Americans nationwide. But they’ve reached a new level of shamelessness with this ploy of holding up food assistance for low-income kids unless schools do the left’s bidding.”
Yep, this is a new low for the administration. How low can it go?
Update: The administration announced on Friday, August 13, that religious schools would be exempt from this requirement.
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Joyce Krawiec serves in the North Carolina Senate. She represents Davie County and Forsyth County, NC. Christian, wife, mother, small business owner, and conservative.