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Feds Banish Sex Stereotypes in Classrooms
Townhall.com ^ | December 16, 2014 | Phyllis Schlafly

Posted on 12/16/2014 7:00:30 AM PST by Kaslin

The Obama administration is now trying to outlaw single-sex classrooms, a practice that has been growing as parents and teachers see its good results. The Obama administration is discouraging that option in conformity with demands by the feminists who believe in the interchangeability of the genders and insist that schools forbid any deviation from their peculiar belief that there is no difference between male and female.

The Minnesota State High School League, which controls policy for all extracurricular activities in all schools, public and private, voted 18 to 1 to outlaw recognition of all sex differences in high-school sports. The new policy, adopted Dec. 4, allows students the choice to play on either boys' or girls' teams if they claim transgender status.

Obviously, the school didn't clear this radical new policy with parents. A group of parents opposed to this agenda ran an ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune stating "A male wants to shower beside your 14-year-old daughter. Are you okay with that?"

Under this new policy, there can be no recognition of sex differences in high school sports, on the field or in locker rooms or bathrooms or hotel rooms. Minnesotans sent more than 10,000 protest emails to the State High School League, but their protests were overruled.

The National Federation of State High School Associations published language to "guide" organizations that may have to respond to parents' complaints. This national explanation reads: "It is important for policy-makers to understand that transgender girls (who were assigned a male gender at birth) are not boys. Their consistent and affirmed gender identity as girls is as deep-seated as the gender identity of non-transgender girls."

This nonsense comes out of a belief that schools and sports should ignore obvious anatomical differences because children supposedly become a boy or a girl only after they are old enough to decide which gender they choose to be. This sets up an authority for the child that conflicts with parental authority and probably emanates from the controversial judicial fiat once enunciated by the Ninth Circuit that parents' rights stop at the threshold of the school door.

The perpetrators of this nonsense try to convey the impression that they are merely fine-tuning the rules of Title IX, but that is not true. Title IX was written to support equal opportunities for girls in schools and colleges, but allowing boys to play on girls' sport teams certainly does not promote that goal, nor was it ever intended.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has moved to suppress the effort by a few public schools to experiment with single-sex classrooms. The senior counsel of the National Women's Law Center criticized single-sex classrooms because they supposedly rely on "sex stereotypes" that assume boys and girls respond to different methods of teaching.

The terrible sin that precipitated the lawsuits was that the boys were assigned to read a story about hunting and dogs, while the girls' classes were assigned a love story. "Stereotyping" has become an epithet like "racist" to silence opposition.

The ACLU filed some 10 administrative complaints against stereotyping with the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights against schools in Florida, Wisconsin, Idaho and Texas. The ACLU sued schools in Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky and West Virginia in 2009 and 2012.

The ACLU sent a letter to the Gloucester County, Virginia, School Board urging it to reject the policy that would limit school restrooms and locker rooms to "the corresponding biological genders." On Dec. 9, the Board voted to retain boys' and girls' restrooms and allow transgender students to use "an alternative private facility," but the ACLU rejected that compromise and says it will sue.

Time Magazine reported scientific studies that show that girls' and boys' brains are "hardwired" differently and support the view that separating the genders will improve learning. These studies suggest that "girls learn better in emotionally supportive, collaborative groups and may not be as good at grasping abstract mathematical concepts, while boys thrive in competitive environments and tend to struggle with reading and art."

Principal Skyles Calhoun of Woodbridge Middle School in Virginia has been so successful in using different teaching styles for boys and girls that grades and test scores for both have soared. He will now be in violation of the new rules, and that will kill a good thing that has produced wonderful results.

There is nothing compulsory about the single-sex option. Woodbridge School offers parents a choice for their children's education, and requires them to answer 33 questions so the schools can be sure that the parents really, really want the single-sex classroom and are not worried about stereotypes.

Meanwhile, the feminists have renewed their drive to put the Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. Since the operative word in ERA is "sex" and not "women," judges would probably rule that ERA would put their transgender sex nonsense into the U.S. Constitution.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: 0bama; 68revolution; education; feminazism; schoolchildren; smashthepatriarchy; smashthestate

1 posted on 12/16/2014 7:00:30 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

So women aren’t allowed to be feminists because the boys might not feel “safe’?


2 posted on 12/16/2014 7:03:14 AM PST by AppyPappy (If you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: Kaslin

Time Magazine reported scientific studies that show that girls’ and boys’ brains are “hardwired” differently and support the view that separating the genders will improve learning. These studies suggest that “girls learn better in emotionally supportive, collaborative groups and may not be as good at grasping abstract mathematical concepts, while boys thrive in competitive environments and tend to struggle with reading and art.”


In today’s liberal, politically correct world, we are not allowed to have studies which discuss differences between boys and girls minds, or how different teaching methods could be different. This offends the sensibilities of liberals. This is the crux of the matter. They want to say there are no differences at all between male and female.

Except, for this absurd notion that “trans-gendered” boys are really girls.


3 posted on 12/16/2014 7:10:03 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego (s)
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To: Kaslin

Minnesota is not “the feds”


4 posted on 12/16/2014 7:22:31 AM PST by WayneS (Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.)
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To: Kaslin

There is NO repeat NO authorization anywhere in the Constitution for the Federal Gummint to dictate the make up of the classrooms. Obama just being Obama. A Marxist dictator to the end.


5 posted on 12/16/2014 7:24:19 AM PST by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: Kaslin

Rigidly adhering to all stereotypes regarding their philosophy and goals, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against stereotyping.


6 posted on 12/16/2014 7:24:34 AM PST by WayneS (Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.)
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To: Kaslin
"A male wants to shower beside your 14-year-old daughter. Are you okay with that?"

Hey!, if it's good enough for Sidwell Friends it's good enough for you peons.

Uhhhhhhh. This IS the policy at Sidwell Friends is it not?

7 posted on 12/16/2014 7:27:47 AM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Kaslin

More of the Democrats’ war on boys, I see.

Boys are failing miserably in the schools that punish masculinity. Girls now do far better in the schools that are designed to keep boys down.


8 posted on 12/16/2014 7:39:09 AM PST by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem)
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To: Kaslin
The Obama administration is discouraging that option in conformity with demands by the feminists who believe in the interchangeability of the genders..

That's a lie. They believe in the superiority of girls and their behavior. Unless boys behave as nice little girls would, they are considered discipline problems, diagnosed with disorders, and drugged into submission if necessary. After a couple of decades of that is it any surprise that more and more boys don't move on to pursue college?

9 posted on 12/16/2014 9:05:36 AM PST by pepsi_junkie (Who is John Galt?)
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To: pepsi_junkie

After a couple of decades of that is it any surprise that more and more boys don’t move on to pursue college?

...nope...and just think about the logical extension of that trend..right up to the point where 95% of the appointees to the service academies are female...


10 posted on 12/16/2014 9:38:13 AM PST by IrishBrigade
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To: Kaslin

Minnesotans sent more than 10,000 protest emails to the State High School League, but their protests were overruled.


So much for the constant “If the parents would just get involved everything would be sunflowers and buttercups” whine. Nope, looks like state/schools still doesn’t listen.


11 posted on 12/16/2014 9:43:32 AM PST by Idaho_Cowboy (Ride for the Brand. Joshua 24:15)
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To: Kaslin
...the feminists who believe in the interchangeability of the genders and insist that schools forbid any deviation from their peculiar belief that there is no difference between male and female.

Until, that is, a couple of college students get drunk and have sex, then the "no difference" vanishes and the drunken woman is a rape victim because she was unable to give consent, but the drunken man is a rapist who was fully responsible for his actions while drunk.

12 posted on 12/16/2014 10:14:15 AM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: Kaslin

(Playing Looney Tunes theme music) Th’ th’ th’ that’s all, folks!


13 posted on 12/16/2014 10:40:17 AM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: Kaslin

Makes sense that the Obama administration would want to change anything that works & substitute it with some form of insanity. Then again maybe the drinking water in D.C. is shipped in from Minnesota.


14 posted on 12/16/2014 11:41:05 AM PST by oldtech
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