Summary
The Trump administration has frozen $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its policies allowing trans women to compete in women’s sports.
A senior official said this is “just a taste” of further action, with UPenn at risk of losing all federal funding due to a Title IX investigation.
Trump signed an executive order on February 5 banning trans women from women’s sports, citing fairness and safety concerns.
Advocacy groups are challenging the move, arguing it discriminates against trans athletes.
So universities are about to go 0-2 in the fight against a Trump takeover.
Columbia bent the knee almost immediately. It’ll be interesting to see how long UPenn holds out.
Just pointing out that UPenn is his alma mater. He went to the Warton School of Business and one of his professors called Trump the dumbest student he ever had.
Well that probably explains why he decided to randomly pick on UPenn. He doesn’t care about the trans athletes. His fee-fees were hurt.
The funniest thing is that the Warton School was one of the first Ivies to get serious about computers. Before they had a separate computer department it was all part of Warton School. With his daddy’s money Trump could have ended up hiring Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, but that would have required a tiny amount of brain cells
Why do you think that Columbia was “fighting” trump in the first place. They had been trying to deport and ban criticism of Israel for decades, they finally had the opportunity and they are glad of it.
I wouldn’t really call it bending the knee. Schools offer services to students and while making the statement (that trans people are still people) is important denying services to hundreds if not thousands of students (due to lack of funding) who may or may not agree with that position just to make the statement isn’t responsible as an institution.
I absolutely agree with their attempt to stand up for students rights, and I also agree with their turnaround. There’s a significant and nonzero chance that they could have hurt students even inadvertently by losing that funding and it was responsible of them to think of the entire student body even though the message is very important.
“now look what you made me do!”
“First they came for the socialists” yada yada.
It’s nice to be privileged so you can ignore the sufferings of others, but eventually it will reach everyone.
This is such a pathetic cop-out reply it’s not even funny. As if every single person with the opinion that Universities shouldn’t, to the detriment of the entire student body, unilaterally decide for everyone who attends where their political beliefs should be absolutely must be privileged.
You don’t have to believe that transgenderism is wrong to believe that students should be the ones to decide if they feel that it’s right for genetic men to participate in women’s sports. It needs to be up to the students, and not the institutions to make that a policy. The University itself has no right to make that policy without the consent of the students in the same way they shouldn’t and couldn’t be allowed to segregate students based on race.
I support trans rights, because I support human rights. It’s not privileged to believe that a public institution has no right to decide the social zeitgeist for the student body–they have no right deciding what is or isn’t acceptable.
I understand your rationale. And in fact, in 99% of circumstances I begrudgingly agree with it. Sometimes, you have to do what’s right for the greater good even if you know it might hurt a few people in the process. But this is not one of those times. And it’s not even because of the specific issues being raised (Protests at Columbia, trans athletes at UPenn, etc.).
The reason I’m against it is because by so quickly bending the knee for Trump on these issues is that you’re telling your students, community, and alumni that the principles you claim to stand for are up for bid. You’re in favor of trans rights – until trans rights start actually costing you money. You’re in favor of the rights of students to protest – until it effects your funding. What happens when a school promotes support of LGBT issues and then comes in the crosshairs of the Trump Hate Machine? “Sorry guys, but we’ve gotta kick all the gays out. Trump threatened to pull $100 million in funding if we don’t.”? Where do you draw the line?
It’s one thing to expect that of a regular business. Neither your local mom & pop store nor Wal-Mart are expected to be champions of our freedoms and hold such an important place in our society. Even if I strongly disagree with their decisions, I can understand if they follow where the political and financial winds are blowing. But universities are a completely different beast and play a completely different role in our society.
I also agree, however, you can’t unilaterally hurt he student body regardless of their beliefs. They also have rights which need and deserve to be protected. Some students might not agree with the official stance of the University and that’s a problem. In the end you’re playing with their future too.
It would be different if the entirety of the student body stood up and said “We support this!” no one would have any ground to stand on. But this isn’t a “majority rules” type of situation. The school cannot unilaterally make a political stance at the detriment of all students regardless of the student bodies political beliefs. It’s just not appropriate for a public institution to do. They have every right and absolutely should support all of their students. And they should do that by making a non-gendered league for their trans students or any other students who want to participate, to participate in. Then no one would be able to bitch.
But you have transgender females who were born male, who had the benefit of a decade or more of testosterone to build lean muscle mass that other female athletes don’t have. It’s literally the same affect as doping and they don’t see it as fair–and if you take the argument at face value, it’s not so crack pot as to not merit discussion.
Everyone has the right to participate in sports. Male, female, lemur, panda, whatever. The question is, is do genetic men have the right to participate in female sports.
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Replace “trans students” with “black students” in your justification and ask yourself if you still believe doing what is good for the majority (not “the entirety”) is the most important directive.
This is exactly how fascism works. “First they came for…” and all.
Firstly, they’re not the same. Pretending that they are is beyond disingenuous. Secondly, segregation affected all institutions in a state. University, primary, public, private. Everything. This doesn’t. It affects a single University and not even the direct student body–only those who participate in sports. It’s also not segregate in nature–no one is saying “trans students can’t attend school here” they’re saying “only genetic females should count as female athletes.”
You don’t need to layer more shit on the question until you can justify yourself, just answer the question. If UPenn was told to stop black people from playing sports, would you think it was correct and good for UPenn to conform because most of their students are not black athletes?