WASHINGTON – Last week, on the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the U.S. Department of Education proposed revising its regulations implementing Title IX – a law intended to promote women’s equality and opportunity. Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee for Religious Liberty, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, and Bishop Thomas A. Daly of Spokane, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Catholic Education, issued a statement in response:

“The 701-page proposed rule issued last week contains many provisions of concern to the Church and her ministries, to the faithful and the common good. The full meaning and impact of these provisions is not entirely clear and will require more careful study.

“But even at this early stage, it is apparent that the rule’s provisions on discrimination based on ‘pregnancy or related conditions,’ which include ‘termination of pregnancy,’ are intended to have implications for abortion, and therefore, life in the womb. And by adding self-asserted ‘gender identity’ to the prohibition against sex discrimination, the rule may foreshadow a threat to women’s athletics, sex-separate spaces, and the right of students, parents, and teachers to speak the truth about the nature of the human person. 

“It is a sad irony that these rules could effectively erase women and girls from the very law meant to serve them.”

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