Delegates at the Democratic National Convention are set to vote Monday on the Democratic Party’s 2024 policy platform, which includes “explicit” Title IX protections for LGBT students that were just blocked by the Supreme Court.
The Democratic National Convention released the final 2024 Democratic Party platform Sunday night, after the one created during President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign was eventually scrapped. Vice President Kamala Harris announced her own presidential bid shortly after, generating a need for revisions that would better align with her own policy positions and a new vision for the party. The latest party platform mimics the Biden administration’s attempted rule making on Title IX to widen the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity.
“After Friday’s SCOTUS order, the Biden-Harris Title IX rules are in effect in less than 50% of the country — underscoring the flagrant lawlessness of this policy, as well as the deep unpopularity of this issue,” Nicole Neily, the president and founder of parental rights group Parents Defending Education, told Fox News Digital. “Americans agree on relatively little these days, but opposition to progressive gender policies is one of the few issues that transcends racial, political, and socioeconomic lines — so doubling down on this issue is a risky move.”
Matt Sharp, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nonprofit that also focuses on parental rights issues, said the decision to include transgender protections in the Democratic Party’s platform “flies in the face of growing opinion” about expanding the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity.
“I think it’s really concerning to see the DNC platform sort of keep going down this same path that courts time and time again have pushed back on, have not allowed to move forward, and that ultimately the American public is not in favor of,” Sharp said.
Sharp pointed out how efforts to redefine sex and sexual discrimination go all the way back to President Barack Obama’s administration. Once Trump took office, he rolled back the rule, but then it was put back in place by Biden.
“This has been a continuing pattern for several administrations to push this, but not only are the courts rebuffing it, but that the American public themselves are too, and we’re seeing it through more and more courageous female voices standing up against this,” Sharp said.
Reed D. Rubinstein, senior vice president at America First Legal, the right-wing legal organization founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, called the move to add protections for transgender students under Title IX “old news.”
“The left has fought this reality for well over a decade — it has repeatedly attempted and repeatedly failed to amend Title IX in Congress. Twice, it has attempted to change the law by administrative fiat. To protect girls’ sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms, the Trump administration reversed the Obama administration’s ‘Dear Colleague’ letter that asserted ‘sex’ and ‘[gender identity’ are coextensive],” Rubinstein told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“The Trump administration issued a Title IX rule that survived every single left-wing court challenge. Now, the courts have stopped the Biden-Harris administration’s attempt to rewrite the statute by regulation. But the Supreme Court, unanimously, has made it clear the word ‘sex’ in Title IX does not mean ‘gender identity,’ but rather, biological sex, male or female.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response.
In addition to Title IX protections for transgender students, the DNC party platform also contains language that states Democrats will continue “to relieve the crippling burden of student debt” in 2024 — another policy effort under Biden that was rolled back by the Supreme Court. The platform blames Republicans for “block[ing] our student debt relief.”
The Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s plans for student debt cancelation last year, arguing the president stepped outside the bounds of his authority when he announced a plan to cancel up to $400 billion in student loans through executive action.
