Title IX Showdown: Feds Call Foul on UPenn

LGBT,

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education issued a press release announcing the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX by failing to prevent biological males from competing in women’s athletics and use women’s locker rooms at the school.

Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order to help protect women and girls from being forced to compete against men. It also protects women’s right to privacy in locker rooms, showers, changing areas, and similar facilities. It also directs federal officials to withdraw funding from educational programs that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”

The Department of Education’s letter indicates the University of Pennsylvania has 10 days to resolve the violation. If it is not resolved voluntarily, the issue will be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice.

We have written time and again about how women’s athletics is at risk of being erased in America.

Female cyclists, swimmers, powerlifters, sprinters, volleyball players, and others have seen their sports radically changed by men who claim to be women.

In 2021 Arkansas passed Act 461 by Sen. Missy Irvin (R — Mountain View) and Rep. Sonia Barker (R — Smackover) to prevent male student athletes from competing against girls in women’s athletics at school. This good law protects fairness in women’s sports in Arkansas.

In 2023 Arkansas lawmakers passed Act 317 by Rep. Mary Bentley (R – Perryville) and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R – Jonesboro) to protect privacy in public school locker rooms, showers, restrooms, changing areas, and similar facilities by requiring public schools to designate these facilities for “male” or “female” use.

And this year legislators passed Act 955 by Sen. Blake Johnson (R — Corning) and Rep. Mary Bentley (R — Perryville) protecting physical privacy and safety of Arkansans in showers, locker rooms, changing rooms, restrooms, and sleeping quarters in government buildings, jails, and in shelters for victims of domestic violence.

Letting men compete in women’s sports is unfair. It reverses 50 years of advancements for women, and in some cases it can even be dangerous. We appreciate our policymakers who work hard to protect fairness in women’s sports in Arkansas and across the country.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Delta-8 in the Dock: Arkansas’ Battle Against Hemp Drugs Gets a New Judge

Marijuana, , ,

The lawsuit over Arkansas’ 2023 ban on Delta-8 THC and other drugs made from hemp has been reassigned to U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker, according to court documents issued last month.

THC is the main psychoactive drug in marijuana, and health experts increasingly warn the drug poses serious risks.

In 2018, Congress passed the federal Agriculture Improvement Act legalizing industrial hemp — or cannabis — that is low in THC. The goal was to let farmers grow cannabis plants for use in textiles like rope or cloth, but manufacturers have found ways to extract and refine the little bit of THC in industrial hemp. Doing this on a commercial scale means they can produce a lot of THC to infuse into drinks, candies, e-cigarettes, and other products.

In response, many state and federal policymakers have pushed back against these dangerous drugs.

For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said that federal law prohibits hemp-derived THC in food products.

Massachusetts, South Dakota, California, and many other states have successfully prohibited food, drinks, and other products that contain THC made from hemp.

In 2023, Arkansas passed Act 629 by Sen. Tyler Dees (R – Siloam Springs) and Rep. Jimmy Gazaway (R – Paragould) to prohibit THC made from industrial hemp.

Family Council supported that good law, and the legislature voted to pass it.

However, members of the hemp industry filed a lawsuit against Act 629, and the law has been tied up in federal court ever since.

A court order issued on April 9 shows the case was randomly reassigned to U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker after Judge Billy Roy Wilson recused himself from the case due to his senior status. Judge Wilson has served on the federal court since 1993. Senior status is a form of judicial semi-retirement that reduces judges’ caseloads.

This year Sen. Dees and Rep. Gazaway filed S.B. 533 to address the issues raised in the lawsuit over Act 629.

S.B. 533 is a good law that will help prohibit intoxicating hemp products that contain THC and other drugs in Arkansas if Act 629 is ruled unconstitutional.

The law effectively stops THC and other drugs made from hemp from being put into food or drinks sold in the state.

It also ensures other hemp products — like CBD oil or cosmetics — do not contain dangerous drugs or other contaminants.

More and more, there is evidence that drugs made from hemp are harmful and need to be prohibited.

In Oregon — where marijuana is legal — the state’s Liquor and Cannabis Commission recently tested 51 samples of industrial hemp flowers as part of its “Operation Clean Leaf” initiative. All 51 hemp samples contained more THC than federal law allows.

Authorities also said the vast majority of hemp products were sold without proper age verification, and that some were tainted with pesticides. That’s part of the reason even liberal states like Oregon are taking steps to address these products.

Laws like Act 629 of 2023 and S.B. 533 are good measures that protect Arkansans from dangerous drugs. We believe courts will ultimately recognize that and let the state prohibit these drugs made from hemp.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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The Federal Government Colluded with Big Banks to Censor Americans: ADF

Religious Freedom,

Recently our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom discussed how official documents indicate the federal government colluded with big banks and other financial institutions to censor Americans.

Congressional investigations show that after the events of January 6, 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department gave banks and other financial institutions guiding “typologies” — patterns that could be used to identify suspicious people or activities — including search terms and patterns like “TRUMP” and “MAGA.”

The government also encouraged financial institutions to comb through transactions for terms like, “Bass Pro Shops,” “Cabela’s,” and “Dick’s Sporting Goods” when looking for “Homegrown Violent Extremism.”

In a recent video interview about this issue, ADF’s Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement, Jeremy Tedesco, said,

You’re buying guns, you’re shopping at Bass Pro Shops, you’re buying religious texts, you’re giving to religious nonprofits. Under the Biden Administration, you could become [labelled] a domestic violence extremist.

Family Council has written repeatedly about how financial institutions may censor conservative Americans. In 2021 our credit card processor that helped handle our donations terminated our account after designating Family Council as “high risk.”

At 10:29 AM on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, our office received a terse email from our credit card processor — a company owned by JPMorgan Chase — saying, “Unfortunately, we can no longer support your business. We wish you all the luck in the future, and hope that you find a processor that better fits your payment processing needs.”

Within sixty seconds, our account was terminated and and Family Council could no longer accept donations online. All we can do is speculate that our conservative principles and our public policy work might have had something to do with the decision to close our account.

Unfortunately, other organizations have had similar experiences as well. In fact, corporate shareholders, state attorneys general, congressmen, and news outlets all have expressed concerns over conservatives being wrongly labeled as “high risk” or “hate groups” and subsequently debanked.

JPMorgan Chase recently took steps to prevent religiously-motivated debanking. That’s good, but our state and federal government need to make sure this sort of thing never happens to anyone again. After all, banks that are too big to fail are too big to discriminate.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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