Tuberville Emphasizes Importance of Title IX Protections

Press Release

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke about the importance of keeping Title IX protections in place for female athletes following National Girls and Women in Sports Day. In remarks delivered on the Senate floor, Senator Tuberville praised the opportunities afforded to female athletes through Title IX and slammed the National Collegiate Athletic Association for refusing to stand up for women's athletics.

Excerpts from the Senator's speech can be found below.

"In my 40 years as a coach and mentor, I have witnessed the immeasurable value sports plays in the lives of young adults. The lessons learned on the field contribute to athletes' success off the field. For example, the value of discipline, hard work, how to deal with success and failure, how to be a leader, [and] the importance of putting the interests of the team ahead of the individual. But many of these lessons are only realized when there is a fair and level playing field. And that is why Title IX protections have been so transformational for women and girls' sports."

"Title IX provided women and girls the long-denied platform that had always been afforded to men and boys. It ensured female athletes had the same access to funding, facilities, and athletic scholarships. Before Title IX, female [athletics] received less than two percent of college athletic budgets -- and athletic scholarships for women were virtually nonexistent."

"Today, 43 percent of high school girls participate in competitive sports. And since the 1970s, when I first started coaching, female participation at the college level has risen by [more than] 600 percent."

"Additionally, America's female athletes are routinely the best-performing on the world stage, in both team and individual sports. In the 2016 Olympics, we saw the largest number of U.S. female Olympians in history. It's clear -- we have made important strides. But recently, the adoption of policies for transgender athletes have negatively impacted the rights, privacy, safety, and achievements of women and girls in sports."

"When then-nominee for Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, James Kvaal testified before the committee, I pressed him on the administration's position of the administration's commitment of upholding Title IX and protecting the rights of women. As expected, he failed to articulate how Title IX would be protected under the Biden administration."

"To appease the demands of the left, sports organizations, from grade school to professional leagues, are focusing on the concept of being "inclusive,' at the expense of being fair."

"The NCAA had the perfect opportunity to stand up for women and girls, and they blew it."

"By punting responsibility, the NCAA leaves the door open for the continued erosion of Title IX protections at the expense of women's athletics and continues to chip away at great unifier that Americans know and love. We need to do better for women's athletics all across the country."

"There is no pre-game speech you can give a woman or a girl who feels like they aren't competing on a fair playing field -- no pep talk can touch Title IX's thirty-seven words that changed everything for women's sports over 50 years ago. It afforded women and girls the same athletic opportunities that their male counterparts have always had -- and we should continue to fight for all the young girls in the future of this country."

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