In yet another example of how the “equality” agenda makes some people more equal than others, certain American universities still offer scholarships open only to female applicants — and perhaps are in violation of often selectively applied federal regulations. And while these schools are now coming under added scrutiny, there could be a little known loophole that would allow the continuation of the discriminatory policies.
The College Fix names some of the offenders, writing, “The University of California, Davis offers at least two scholarships exclusively to women through the Women’s Resource and Research Center. The university’s Ellen Hansen Memorial Prize is ‘awarded annually to a … woman-identified student,’ while the center’s Eva Shicke Memorial Prize funds female students wishing to pursue gender-related research.”
“The center’s Graduate Summer Research Award ‘invite[s] applications from students with marginalized gender identities,’ among which it lists ‘women, transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folks.’ It is unclear if men are excluded from applying,” the site continues.
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Interestingly, Wendi Delmendo, the chief compliance officer of the school’s Office of Compliance and Policy, told the Fix that she had no knowledge of the scholarships but would investigate the matter. Yet since her very job is ensuring her school complies with federal regulations — including Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination — this is quite telling. It’s hard to imagine that she’d be unaware of, and would not have addressed, scholarships geared only toward men and “male-identified” students.
Delmendo also stated she had no idea when her investigation would be complete, which could mean she’s hoping to stall until the issue disappears down the memory hole.
The Fix also cites Arizona State University, where “the Worthy Women’s Scholarship is ‘intended for women’ in order to ‘support women as they pursue their academic careers’”; and Wright State University in Ohio and Ohio State University, which offer at least one women-only scholarship each.
The good news for people who still dislike unjust double standards is that women-only set asides have been successfully challenged at other schools. Examples are:
• Three women-only faculty awards at the University of Michigan-Flint that were opened up to both sexes after a challenge by economist Mark Perry, an American Enterprise Institute scholar on faculty at the university.
• Three women-only scholarships made available to men last October at the University of Minnesota, also after a challenge by Perry.
• An agreement made late last year between Tulane University and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights requiring the school to alter several financial and “experiential” programs for women so as to eliminate anti-male discrimination.
It should be noted here that Title IX is unconstitutional, as the federal government has no constitutional warrant to dictate policy to schools. Nonetheless, the legislation has been applied for decades — one-sidedly. Most egregiously, a “proportionality” application of Title IX instituted under the Bill Clinton administration has decimated men’s college sports; this principle states that if a student body is 60 percent female, the schools’ athletes also must be. But since finding enough women to play sports (men have greater interest) has often been difficult — and since funding gratuitous women’s athletics tends to be unfeasible — schools have often responded by cutting men’s sports, with wrestling programs especially hard hit.
The bottom line here is that practicing equality of opportunity has clearly not been a priority for those preaching it. This is where you may think the apparent goal is that Marxist one: equality of outcome.
Think again.
For decades now, not only have girls have been getting better grades in school, but women have been attending — and graduating from — college in higher numbers. Thus, an equality-of-outcome agenda would dictate men-only scholarships, not the reverse.
This brings us to a little recognized double standard. Consider “proportionality” again. If it’s truly an imperative, and given that academics is far more important than athletics, shouldn’t proportionality be applied to the student body in the first place? Shouldn’t a school’s male-female ratio match that of the general population (i.e., at least 49.2 percent men)?
Instead, in typical “equality for me but not thee” style, proportionality is forgotten when creating the student body, when it would benefit men; but then is applied after it’s created, when it’s a detriment to men. Talk about the New Chivalry.
As for the extant “women-only” scholarships — I could be giving leftists ideas by mentioning this (but, hey, they basically don’t pay attention to me, anyway) — but some of the offending universities may have a loophole.
Note that these exclusive scholarships often include the stipulation that they’re reserved for a “woman-identified student,” to again quote the UC Davis’ Ellen Hansen Memorial Prize’s language. This means the defining criterion is “gender,” which, contrary to common belief, is not synonymous with “sex.”
“Sex” refers to the biological reality of being male or female. “Gender,” however, was until recently used mainly in reference to words and now, say the sexual-devolutionary social engineers and psychobabblers who co-opted the term, refers to one’s perception of what he is (i.e., male, female, “agender,” a Fig Newton, etc.).
Thus, were I a left-wing university administrator totally devoid of honor, I’d simply point out that the scholarship in question discriminates only on the basis on gender, while Title IX only prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.
Of course, this means that a man claiming womanhood could apply for the scholarship. But unless men decided to advantage themselves by thus masquerading en masse, this would ensure that virtually all the scholarship recipients remained female.
That said, do note that not long ago, under the Barack Obama administration, leftists claimed that Title IX prohibited gender discrimination as well, and sought to thus apply it. But no matter. As this article illustrates, the Left certainly isn’t above exercising ideologically convenient double standards.
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