Title IX has been a beacon of protection since it was passed in 1972 but it is also a rather weak promise. Students are at the whim of rotating administrations who use policies like Title IX as cannon fodder for their own interests.

In the 2024 election cycle, Republicans spent over $65 million on anti-trans ads, many of which focused on transgender athletes. Yet, the NCAA president has said that of more than 500,000 student athletes in NCAA schools, there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes. This begs the question: Why are conservative politicians spending so much money and effort tearing away athletic competition from fewer than 10 students? Not only are their motivations discriminatory they are also confusingly moronic. 

We could solely blame President Donald Trump for motions like signing executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” on Feb. 5 that rescinded previous protections for LGBTQ+ students that the U.S. Department of Education brought forth in 2024. However, former President Joe Biden ran a campaign in 2020 on promises of reversing the harm Trump did in office — yet Title IX did not recover from Trump’s grasp until Biden and his administration were already walking away from the Oval Office. Without people in the presidential administration to uphold and bolster Title IX and other human rights advancements, Biden finally followed through on a promise at the worst time.

Biden has exemplified an important lesson about change-making: never write the defense of people’s needs in paint when you don’t know there is time for it to dry. Ithaca College generally does an admirable job at being ahead of the curve and making proactive progress rather than reactive change. However, we do need to find better ways to support LGBTQ+ students in a way that expands their access rather than toes the line in fear of loss of federal funding. It is complacent to repeat that we are allies or we live in New York so our school will be fine every time a national issue knocks on our door.