Department of Education to Probe Athletic Program Allowing Transgender Females to Compete With Girls

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is opening an investigation into whether female high school athletes were discriminated against when the state of Connecticut allowed males who identify as females to compete with them.

The three high school girls pursuing the complaint include Selina Soule, who earlier this year missed qualifying for the 55-meter dash in the New England regionals.

Two biological boys who identify as female were allowed to compete in Connecticut’s girls indoor track championship. These transgender females took first and second place in the event.

Had the transgender athletes not been allowed to compete with the girls, Soule would have qualified for the regionals, as The Daily Signal’s Kelsey Bolar documented in a May video report.

According to the letter sent by the Office for Civil Rights about its decision to take up the case, it is examining the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s “Transgender Participation Policy” for possible Title IX violations in discriminating against girls.

The state policy allows athletes to participate in boys or girls sports according to their gender identity, no matter their biological sex.

Title IX is a federal law created to protect equal education opportunities for women and girls, including in athletics. Schools may lose federal funds if they don’t comply.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Soule, said in a press release Thursday that the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s policy “regularly results in boys out-performing and displacing girls in competitive high-school track events across Connecticut.”

The three girls’ complaint alleges that the Glastonbury Board of Education “denied equal athletic benefits and opportunities” to girls because of the transgender policy and its failure to request that the state conference change the policy.

Additionally, federal officials are investigating the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and the Glastonbury school district for alleged retaliation against particular parents and their daughters for complaining about the transgender policy.

With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit Christian legal aid organization, the parents of Soule and the two other unnamed girls filed a federal complaint June 18 on behalf of their daughters with the Department of Education.

Christiana Holcomb, legal counsel with the nonprofit, told The Daily Signal in June that it hopes “to restore a level playing field for Selina.”

“Girls like Selina should never be forced to be spectators in their own sports, but, unfortunately, that is exactly what is taking place when you allow biological males to compete in sports that have been set aside and specifically designed for women like Selina,” Holcomb said.

“Title IX was designed to ensure that girls have a fair shake at athletics, and are not denied the opportunity to participate at the highest levels of competition.”

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When My College Art Class Became a Political Ambush

One afternoon during my sophomore year at the University of Virginia, I had to attend a presentation from the college’s residential artist for an art class that I was taking.

As I sat down in the auditorium, I listened intently to the artist, hoping to gain some insight into his creativity.

Instead, the situation quickly became political. The artist asked any “secret conservatives” in the room to raise their hands. Not simply “conservatives,” mind you. He simply assumed that any conservative sitting there would be ashamed of their beliefs, hence the word “secret.”

I had nothing to hide about my conservative views, so I put up my hand and claimed my beliefs. I thought I would then learn something relevant to the class about art. Instead, I got an earful about the failures of conservatives, ranging from immigration to our “homophobic” president and why traditional values were wrong.

When I left the room, I was angry. All I could think about was the impossible situation he had just put me in.

I wasn’t “secretly” conservative, but in raising my hand, I was allowing him to suggest otherwise. The way he framed the question suggested that to be a conservative, I had to be secretive about it, as if it were shameful. On the other hand, not raising my hand at all would have communicated that I was a liberal. I would have been tacitly condoning beliefs that went against my conscience. The binary choice the artist gave me was a false and unfair one.

As a conservative on campus, every day served as a reminder that not everyone agrees with my beliefs. That’s to be expected in a free country.

But we ought to assume the best about each other rather than the worst. We ought to treat each other’s views with the same fairness we would want for ourselves.

Unfortunately, this incident forced me and other conservatives into a box, one that was defined by the artist’s preconceived narrative. There was no way I could win. I was expected to be ashamed of my beliefs and pressured to hide them.

If we want to have a productive political dialogue, we need to let other people speak their opinions on their own terms, without forcing them into our own preconceived narratives.

There is real value in recognizing the worth of conflicting viewpoints. But the left has lost sight of that. Progressives talk about openness and acceptance of others—the artist I mentioned did that—yet he couldn’t see that I was being excluded in his forum. I was being “otherized.”

This is a blatant double standard, and it shouldn’t exist—least of all on a college campus where students are meant to engage with competing views.

If the left wants to be the champion of “acceptance,” it must be willing to hear from the conservative viewpoint. Conservatives want an open and productive discourse that is not biased from the outset.

The best way to achieve that is to recognize that all people have intrinsic value, and therefore, their opinions deserve to be heard.

This was impressed upon me a few weeks ago while listening to Princeton University professor Robert George speak to the interns at The Heritage Foundation.

He explained that simply by virtue of being human, we have dignity. This dignity begets individual rights—rights to life and liberty. No one lives freely whose views are treated as infantile or shameful.

He also said, “The right to religious freedom is the right to express your views in public.”

While he was directly referencing freedom of religion, the same concept applies to beliefs in general. As long as I am not endangering the life, liberty, or property of another person, I should be free to proclaim my beliefs without fear of retaliation.

I fully expect to face opposition due to my views, and I never want to fall into the trap of thinking I have the corner on truth. But I do not want the left to control my narrative, either.

I have never been ashamed of my conservative views. If anything, my time at Heritage has helped me to realize the impact that one individual can have—even by doing something as simple as listening to someone whose opinion usually gets squashed by those with louder voices.

Our country flourishes because we enjoy the freedom to express and debate ideas. But if we lose that freedom to a false kind of discourse governed by one worldview, then there is no hope for a productive conversation.

As I head into my third year at the University of Virginia, I plan to take this ideal with me. I’m determined to stand firm when faced with the scorn of those who oppose my views, but also leave room for others to speak freely.

I have been given such a gift and a wealth of knowledge in this internship that to be either complacent or cavalier about my beliefs would be a poor service to those who spent this summer giving me the lessons of their lives.

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Australia: Universities need to listen to what students want from their degrees

University students have become "customers" and if universities are uncomfortable with that idea they are out of touch.

The chief executive of study support service, Studiosity, Michael Larsen, said a  survey of student experience showed the demand-driven system has shifted what students expect to get from higher education and many universities are running hard to catch up.

The survey asked 1100 students to rate their satisfaction with university education. Nearly 49 per cent said the did not believe the course they were studying was worth the money it cost. More than 55 per cent said it would "take years to pay off my student loan".

That was despite the fact only 16 per cent thought what they learnt at university could have been learnt in a job. And only 10 per cent felt the quality of what they learnt at university was not of a high standard.

"Value is a big part of the student experience," Mr Larsen said. "Everyone in society has become a consumer. Services like Netflix and Menulog have changed expectations. The availability and immediacy of those services has raised the bar for what students experience."

He said the demand-driven system meant everyone who wanted to go to university could get there. But combined with the high cost of a degree there were far more people in the system who felt they weren't getting value for money.

"Not all universities see students as customers and are quite confronted by that idea. That's a shame. Universities need to improve the student experience," Mr Larsen said.

Student responses to the survey question "Was your degree worth the money?" included, "I feel many people still go out from uni unprepared because they haven't actually experienced the world" , "It's very theoretical, not very practical based learning like you deal with in the workplace" and "what I am learning seems more theory based and not very practical".

The chief academic officer at Studiosity and former pro vice chancellor, learning and teaching, at Sydney University, Judyth Sachs said the survey showed the quality of university education was not in question but the high cost showed there was a disconnect as far as students were concerned.

Professor Judyth Sachs says universities are out of touch.

"Universities have to do more on employability, on soft skills and being able to work in a team."

She said nearly 19 per cent of students in the survey said they didn't feel they had learnt enough to be job ready.

"In some professional areas like engineering and psychology this has been going on for a long time. But for arts degree or generalist science degrees there has to be an employability focus.

"It's government policy that universities respond to performance indicators," Professor Sachs said.

The most important of these was the governments' Quality Indicators of Learning and Teaching (QILT) survey of attrition, retention and employability which will feed into the new performance-driven funding from 2020 under a Coalition government.

Labor has also said it will look at performance funding if it wins power in May.

"It's about making the universities more accountable. Given government is spending more money than ever on higher education, it has to get more accountability and responsibility from unis."

She said universities also needed to pay more attention to engagement in the first months of an undergraduate degree which was where there were high levels of drop-out.

"There's a broad disconnect. Students come to uni without any peer group.  Lots of them don't know how to navigate their way. Especially if they're first in family and alone at university; it's large, informal and chaotic but they're expected to perform.

"I was provost at Macquarie University for 12 years. Retention rates were high. But we found lots of the first in family didn't have the cultural capital to be self supporting."

She said a drawback of the QILT survey was it pushed universities to focus on "technocratic"  solutions when what they needed to think about was how to ensure students were successful.

"We're not just talking about academic terms. It's the value-add of soft skills, it's about producing productive and successful citizens.

Among international students, 42 per cent thought the degree was not worth the cost and of these 37 per cent said they didn't feel they'd learnt enough to be "job ready".

Mr Larsen said, "With the cost of higher education on the rise, proving consistent value-add will be a challenge for universities."

Only 16 per cent of students in the survey said their experience of university was better than they expected. One of them added, "I thought it would feel more like a community."

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