During a House Education & Workforce Committee hearing last week, Rep. Bob Onder (R-MO) asked Secretary of Education Linda McMahon about transgender athletes and Title IX funding.
00:00Missouri, Mr. Under. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Secretary McMahon, so much for taking
00:06the time to come to testify before us today. First of all, I'd like to apologize for the
00:12contemptible way that my Democrat colleague treated you. I just want to say parenthetically
00:18that absolutely, I'm a physician who has taken care of Medicaid-insured patients for over 30
00:24years, and absolutely zero children will lose their health care under the Big Beautiful
00:30Reconciliation Bill. But I'd like to discuss with you some of the damage done by the Biden
00:38administration to education policy in the United States. One of the worst policies, of course, was
00:45the Department of Education's treatment of Title IX regulation. It, of course, radically reinterpreted
00:54sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation, which resulted in men infiltrating women's
00:59sports, much to the detriment of fairness and safety in an area where women have made enormous
01:06progress over the years. Thankfully, a federal court vacated that regulation earlier this year.
01:11But there was another aspect of Biden's Title IX regulation that was also damaging but didn't
01:17receive as much attention, and that is the erosion of due process during Title IX adjudication of
01:23misconduct on campus. The Biden administration uniformly lowered the evidence standard required
01:28for a student to be convicted of misconduct in such an adjudication. This is serious, and federal
01:35courts have found that some students were wrongfully disciplined or even expelled in that process.
01:42The Trump administration has worked to improve this situation, preserving the integrity of the process
01:51for sexual misconduct victims, and at the same time discouraging false accusations, because if false
01:56accusations are tolerated, it weakens the voice of actual victims. I believe we need a permanent legislative
02:04solution to protect victims of misconduct and and those accused, as opposed to ping ponging back and forth with changes in administration.
02:13Unfortunately, the Biden administration was not alone in disrespecting the Title IX due process rights over the years.
02:23After a Title IX adjudication that occurred after Oberlin College changed its school's procedures, the Sixth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals strongly reprimanded the college, noting that in this country we determine guilt or innocence individually rather than
02:29collectively based on one's identification with some demographic group, and concluded the institution's expulsion of a student was arguably inexplicable. A similar case out of Purdue University, where the university refused to allow the
02:47accused to see the evidence against him. Secretary McMahon, could you talk about the efforts of the department to ensure that education and educational institutions know their obligations under Title IX to protect the due process rights of the
03:05of their students as well as the victims of misconduct?
03:23Certainly, I think this administration has shown that it is absolutely committed to protecting Title IX, not only with keeping men out of women's sports, because we do know that
03:35that women are absolutely girls and women are absolutely put at a disadvantage when men are allowed to compete, just simply because they can miss scholastic opportunities as well as for their own personal safety.
03:48Right.
03:49So, I absolutely believe that we are correct in enforcing those Title IX efforts, and the President has issued an executive order to that effect as well, as well as the fact that I do believe that it is covered under Title IX.
04:03Yeah.
04:04So, and the due process portion at our universities, I think, is very important that we continue to look at that to make sure, as you said, that victims and those who are accused are protected under due process.
04:15No, I think that's correct, and I think too many times these Title IX adjudications are run by folks of a DEI bent, and many times there can be a guilty until proven innocent,
04:32uh, assumption, uh, assumption and a lack of due process.
04:36So, I think, I, I thank you, um, and of course the Trump administration for your commitment to restoring Title IX to its original purpose, as opposed to being weaponized for, uh, ideological political ends.
04:51Thank you so much for being before us here today.
