College officials and consultants from across the United States plotted to undermine Trump’s Title IX protections for women and girls by using “religious” exemptions to carve out special privileges for trans-identifying students, emails obtained by Speech First and released to the Daily Caller indicate.
The emails were exchanged by members of the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA) and “consultants, coordinators and college and university officials who deal with the application of Title IX in schools.” The correspondence discussed how to avoid following Trump’s revision of Title IX that would only recognize biological sex to protect “the civil rights and equality of men and women at school from K-12 through college,” The Federalist’s Breccan Thies reported.
Different users in the emails asked if schools could use a religious exemption as a legitimate legal argument to avoid following the biological sex requirement in Title IX, the Daily Caller reported.
“If you could establish and promulgate a LGBTQ+ church that met the standard … the courts would have to tolerate that church’s beliefs, whatever they are,” said Brett Sokolow, according to the emails. Sokolow is listed as an advisory board member on ATIXA’s website.
David Rucker, the deputy Title IX coordinator for employees at Pima Community College in Arizona, asked, “If my God says there are various sexes (non-binary) and that his design for me … is this not a religious belief?” according to the emails. “My point is, the LGBTQ+ community may not be covered under Title IX any longer but do not forget there may be other laws that play a role in LGBTQ+ protections. This holds even stronger for those of us that manage more than just Title IX issues,” Rucker continued.
Sokolow “suggested” in the emails that if “schools could claim membership with ‘a tolerant existing sect,’” they could use the membership as a basis for arguing that Title IX’s biological sex requirement “violates your beliefs,” the Daily Caller reported.
An anonymous community college user asked, “If a person can refuse to use someone’s preferred pronoun because to do so would be a violation of their religious beliefs (‘God only made 2 sexes’), can’t that become a double-edged sword? Can people in the LGBTQ+ community arguing the concept of gender identity and gender expression is religious based (‘God ma[de] more than 2 sexes’)?”
Sokolow also referred to Trump’s executive order “recognize[d] two sexes, male and female” as “another salvo in a protracted conflict,” according to an email from January.
A “harassment and toxic workplace” consultant, Paula Brantner, responded to Sokolow’s email by “suggest[ing] the Metropolitan Community Church, stating it ‘fits the bill’ of an existing ‘LGBTQ+ Church’ and could be ‘considered to be affirming for the purposes of litigation,’” the Daily Caller reported. Yet Rucker reportedly said that colleges don’t have to be part of an “organized religious group” to get a religious exemption.
In response to Trump’s change in Title IX, Rucker said that “we may need to analyze whether our institutions can just ignore this type of discrimination (as the Executive Order wants) or if we need to be on-guard,” according the emails.
Rucker and Brantner “did not immediately respond” to the Daily Caller for comment.
“ATIXA does not provide legal advice,” Sokolow told the Daily Caller. “ATIXA has always been a strong proponent of institutional religious freedoms and takes the position that government cannot and should not pick and choose which religious beliefs are worthy, a position the Department of Education itself has long taken with respect to granting religious exemptions under Title IX.”
“These latest emails highlight the outsized role that professional organizations have played in the gender debate, not only advocating in favor of expansive gender policies in schools but also in blocking reforms thereof. It is unconscionable that public employees drawing taxpayer-funded salaries are scheming on listserves how to circumvent the law,” Speech First Board Chair Nicole Neily said.