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An action in the US Court for the District of Kansas is having
implications far beyond the Sunflower State, and in fact, has been
determined to specifically apply to J. F. Kennedy Memorial
Elementary School, Franklin High School, the Gerald M. Parmenter
Elementary School and the Remington Middle School.
What’s going on? It all has to do with expansions to Federal “Title
IX” of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based
discrimination in any school or any other education program
that receives funding from the federal government. For decades, that
was something that occasioned some adaption and change and, notably
improved funding for women’s athletics.
However, expansions by the Federal government embraced
self-defined sex or gender identity,
which has meant, notably, in the eyes of critics, that biological
males have had access to women’s lavatories and locker rooms as
well as having the right to compete in sports otherwise reserved for
women or girls. Partly as a consequence, both within the region and
nationally, some women’s teams have simply chosen to forfeit games
rather than have to compete with biologically male opponents.
With that as a backdrop, a lawsuit by Moms for Liberty and Female
Athletes United, heard in the above mentioned federal court, has
resulted in an injunction that prohibits schools where members of
those groups or their children attend, from enforcing the newest
federal mandates and also from creating a new rules of their own.
The current list of schools, which is growing, reportedly touch
schools in dozens of Massachusetts towns including North Attleboro,
Foxborough, King Phillip Regional, and Franklin schools, as listed
above.
According to the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center, “On August 16,
2024, the Supreme Court weighed in for the first time on the new
Title IX rules.5 The Court declined the federal government’s
request to overturn temporary injunctions issued by two federal
courts. The decision only addressed these temporary injunctions; the
Court has not yet had an opportunity to rule on the merits as to
whether the new Title IX rules are legal. However, this recent
decision does seem to indicate that the Court is likely to overturn
the rules when they are presented with the opportunity to do so.”
