DENVER — Parents in blue states may feel powerless to stop the Biden administration’s Title IX rule, but it turns out they have a silver bullet: They can join Moms for Liberty.

A federal judge last week temporarily blocked the final rule adding “gender identity” to Title IX in Kansas, Alaska, Utah and Wyoming — and schools attended by children whose parents belong to Moms for Liberty or students who are members of Young America’s Foundation or Female Athletes United.

In other words, any parent in any state can stop their child’s school from enforcing the Title IX rewrite simply by signing up for Moms for Liberty, which is free and can be done online, or having their child register for YAF or FAU.

The catch: The deadline is July 15.

The result is a membership-drive bonanza that has the potential to bring untold hundreds, if not thousands, into the Moms for Liberty fold as parents seek to exempt their schools from the gender identity requirement pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

“If you join by July 15th, your child will be protected from the Biden administration’s radical overhaul of Title IX,” said Moms for Liberty, which enrolls both mothers and fathers, on X. “That means girls & parental rights [are] protected at your child’s school!”

The message is particularly relevant in blue states or those with Democratic attorneys general. No Democratic AG has sued to block the revised rule.

Disparate Impact Thinking Is Destroying Our Civilization

Heather Mac Donald

Manhattan Institute

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She earned a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. in English from Cambridge University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She writes for several newspapers and periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and The New Criterion, and is the author of several books, including The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe and When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives.

The following is adapted from a talk delivered on February 15, 2024, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Naples, Florida.

The most consequential falsehood in American public policy today is the idea that any racial disparity in any institution is by definition the result of racial discrimination.

If a cancer research lab, for example, does not have 13 percent black oncologists—the black share of the national population—it is by definition a racist lab that discriminates against competitively qualified black oncologists; if an airline company doesn’t have 13 percent black pilots, it is by definition a racist airline company that discriminates against competitively qualified black pilots; and if a prison population contains more than 13 percent black prisoners, our law enforcement system is racist.

The claim that racial disparities are proof of racial discrimination has been percolating in academia and the media for a long time. After the George Floyd race riots of 2020, however, it was adopted by America’s most elite institutions, from big law and big business to big finance. Even museums and orchestras took up the cry.

Many thought that STEM—the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—would escape the diversity sledgehammer. They were wrong. The American Medical Association today insists that medicine is characterized by white supremacy. Nature magazine declares that science manifests one of “humankind’s worst excesses”: racism. The Smithsonian Institution announces that “emphasis on the scientific method” and an interest in “cause and effect relationships” are part of totalitarian whiteness.

As a result of this falsehood, we are eviscerating meritocratic and behavioral standards in accordance with what is known as “disparate impact analysis.”

Consider medicine. Step One of the medical licensing exam, taken during or after the second year of medical school, tests medical students’ knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and pathology. On average, black students score lower on the grading curve, making it harder for them to land their preferred residencies. Step One, in other words, has a “disparate impact” on black medical students. The solution, implemented last year, was to eliminate the Step One grading disparity by instituting a pass–fail system. Hospitals choosing residents can no longer distinguish between high and low achieving students—and that is precisely the point!

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