PLF’s Joshua Thompson Takes on the Title IX Blog

When anyone asks me what our adversaries are like in the Title IX reform debate, I always tell them to take a close look at the Title IX Blog. The critical difference there: the authors don’t allow any outsiders to leave comments on their blog posts. It’s almost as if they’re afraid of free and open debate about the law and the damage it’s doing at colleges and high schools around the country.

A few days back, Kristine Newhall, one of the co-authors of the blog, posted her rejoinder to the American Sports Council (ASC) lawsuit against the Department of Education concerning the application of Title IX’s three-part test to high school sports. To say the least, Newhall got off to a rough start with her headline:
Why Title IX should (and already does) apply to high schools
Let me start off by suggesting that Ms. Newhall read our complaint a little more closely. The ASC’s suit never said that Title IX doesn’t apply to high schools. Instead, rather pointedly, we said that the three-part test that was developed for colleges does not apply to high schools. The following comes straight from the complaint:

“The Council fully embraces the intent of Title IX: to prohibit intentional discrimination based on sex, and eliminate from federally funded education all sex-based ‘quotas’ and ‘percentage balances. … The Council believes that the manner in which Title IX is now being enforced by the Department should be reformed, so that the law can continue to provide enforcement for eliminating intentional discrimination, but also so that agency interpretation no longer compels discriminatory quotas.”

To say that we’re arguing Title IX doesn’t apply to high schools simply doesn’t make any sense. Then again, if you’re looking for anything sensible, the Title IX Blog shouldn’t be the first place you look.
I could go into more detail, but instead, I’d like to pass things off to one of the folks who actually drafted the complaint, in this case, Joshua Thompson, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation. Early this morning, he posted a response to Ms. Newhall at the foundation’s blog:

After PLF and the American Sports Council made waves announcing their lawsuit concerning the application of sex-based quotas on American high schools, the proponents of sex-based quotas have finally begun their counter-attack. Unsurprisingly, however, the response from the Title IX Blog is based solely on hyperbole, ad hominems, straw man arguments, and non sequiturs. I’ll point out some of the most egregious fallacies after the fold.

Safe to say, Joshua makes quick work of Ms. Newhall’s rebuttal. Read it all right now.

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