First time farce, second time national tragedy:
As lawmakers across the United States battle over whether to allow transgender Americans to use public restrooms that match their gender identities, universities are scrambling to ensure that dorms meet federal standards.
At a time of year when the nation’s 2,100 residential colleges and universities are sorting out student housing assignments, they also are poring over a May letter from the Obama administration that thrusts them into the national debate on transgender rights.
Known as the “dear colleague” letter, it makes clear that federal law protects transgender students’ right to live in housing that reflects their gender identity. Schools that fail to provide adequate housing to transgender students could face lawsuits or the loss of any federal funding they rely on.
The May letter from the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice invoked Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funds.
To say that Title IX was never intended to put biological males with psychological disorders into intimate female environments is at once true and beside the point. On the other hand, one could just as easily argue — given the “progressive” doctrine of incrementalism — that this was precisely the point.
Another observation: institutions of higher learning that reject federal funds — Hillsdale College, take a bow — can ignore this nonsense. More should follow suit and wean themselves from the Washington teat.
Meanwhile, who knew this TV sitcom from the early ’80s, which launched Tom Hanks’ sterling career, was a weirdly prescient documentary?
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