Amid pressure from the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy group, the U.S.
Department of Education publicly released a list of Christian schools
seeking Title IX exemptions over their views on transgenderism.
In December, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) issued a report calling
for “greater transparency” for religious schools seeking exemptions
“under the guise of religious liberty.”
On April 29, the Obama administration published the results of the
request—placing the spotlight on each college and university seeking to
hold true to a biblical worldview on gender and sexuality.
“Yes, we filed for the exemption and we are proud of it,” said Everett
Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, one of the schools on
the list. “But nothing will change for us. We are compliant with a
biblical worldview and to do anything else would be false advertising
for our students.”
Title IX is the federal law enacted in 1972 to prevent discrimination
on the basis of sex. For years, the law was used primarily to give women
equal access to intercollegiate sports. But in 2014, without a single
move from lawmakers in Congress, the Department of Education expanded
the definition to include gender identity. Now, schools need to
accommodate men who identify as women—granting them access to female
housing or even permission to compete on female sports teams if they
choose.
The broadened definition challenged many Christian institutions to
either compromise their faith-based principles or file for an exemption
from the new mandate to keep federal funding. And even with the
exemption, the move opens the door to possible lawsuits from LGBT groups
and public ridicule.
Eight Senate Democrats joined with HRC to pressure the Department of Education to compile and release the list.
But others in the Senate view this as just one more example of an overreaching agency in the Obama administration.
In March, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., spoke out against the
Department of Education, citing Title IX mandates as an example of abuse
of power.
“The Department of Education positions itself to hold federal funding
ransom if universities don’t comply with its policies even when those
policies are unlawful abuses of regulatory power,” Lankford said. “Here
the ends certainly do not justify the means. Schools and the very
students we want to protect suffer as a result.”
The Department of Education’s list spotlighted 74 schools that have
filed for exemptions since 2009. They range from Baptist institutions,
such as Anderson University in South Carolina, to Quaker colleges, such
as George Fox University in Oregon.
“(We want) to ensure that no student unknowingly enrolls in a school
that intends to discriminate against them,” HRC president Chad Griffin
said.
The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), which
represents 152 North American institutions, said the list merely affirms
which schools are taking advantage of provisions already laid out by
lawmakers.
“The real story is why some are trying to penalize religious colleges
for simply following the law,” the CCCU said in a statement.
Yet for Piper, the exemption is less about shielding his institution
under the law but protecting his students from invasions of privacy.
Being a male or being a female is an objective reality, and Piper said
he wants to respect each student’s God-given biological sex.
“We believe that women should be given the dignity of having their own
restrooms, showers, and dorms,” Piper said, reiterating statements he
made in December. “I am pro-woman and proud of it.”
Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) echoed that sentiment.
“Activists have sought to publicly shame institutions that have
exercised their rights, and they successfully recruited the Department
[of Education] to join their efforts,” said Greg Baylor, senior counsel
with ADF. “We are hopeful that most Americans will support schools that
seek to respond to gender dysphoria with compassion and Christian love
rather than follow the government’s one-size-fits-all mandates.”
Courtesy: WORLD News Service
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