Tag Archives: scholarships

Governor Cooper Has Vetoed The Expansion of Opportunity Scholarships Bill

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On September 21, The Carolina Journal reported that North Carolina Governor Cooper has vetoed a bill that fully funds Opportunity Scholarships, requires sheriffs to cooperate with ICE, and includes adjustments to the budget proposal. The North Carolina legislature is expected to override his veto.

The article reports:

Just a day before, Cooper spent most of his time as the keynote speaker Thursday at the Legislative Session of the 151st Annual North Carolina Press Association (NCPA) Convention blasting Opportunity Scholarships, insisting they will hurt public schools.

“That veto can be upheld if enough legislators in both parties tell Republican leaders that they don’t want to vote on a veto override this year,” he said at a press conference Friday.

Cooper noted at the NCPA Convention that he, his children (although at least one had gone to a private school), and more than 84% of the state’s students go to public schools, and as the pillars of the free press need to be safeguarded, so do public schools.

“Unfortunately, those public schools are facing the biggest threat in decades from the legislature that is pillaging taxpayer money from them and using it for private school vouchers that even the wealthiest families can use for children already in private school,” he said. “These hundreds of millions of dollars in vouchers come with no accountability.”

Cooper said that legislators plan to spend $4 billion on school vouchers over the next decade and that rural schools would be hurt the most because there are fewer private schools in those areas.

The article concludes:

Incoming Speaker of the House, Rep. Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, told CJ that while he couldn’t comment directly on Cooper’s comments since he arrived later in the session, he thinks parents ought to make their own decisions about where their children go to school, pointing to the 55,000 backlog of students waiting on the list.

“I think those results speak for themselves,” he said. “The money that we put towards Opportunity Scholarships is towards education because it’s to help those kids get to the school that their parents want them to go to. I’m proud of the program and glad to continue it.”

When asked about Cooper’s promise to veto it, Hall jokingly said he made that announcement for him last week, so it’s not breaking news. He added that the GA will override his veto sometime shortly, possibly before the election, if not shortly after that, and probably with some Democratic support, making it a bipartisan effort.

North Carolina needs a veto-proof legislature to protect the interests of its voters. Hopefully that pattern will continue.

Watch The Margin

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On Friday (updated Saturday) The Epoch Times posted an article about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the changes the Biden administration is attempting to make to Title IX. The Biden administration is attempting to add the concept of gender into the law. That change would bar discrimination of transgender men in women’s sports, locker rooms, restrooms, etc.

The article reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 to reject the federal government’s bid to partially enforce its Title IX rule in 10 Republican-led states.

In a ruling handed down on Aug. 16, the high court left intact two separate lower court orders that blocked the entirety of the rule in Louisiana and nine other states that challenged it.

At the center of the disputes are three provisions, which include one declaring that the existing federal law against sex-based discrimination in education settings also prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The ruling was 5-4. That means that four of the justices were okay with the idea of men in women’s sports. Four of the justices had no problem with men taking scholarships from women who had worked their whole lives to earn them. Four of the justices had no problem with men in women’s dressing rooms. This ruling tells us why the Biden administration is attacking the Supreme Court–they are one vote away from radically changing America.

The article notes:

The rule also addresses gendered pronouns and sex-separate spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower areas, clarifying that schools and colleges could lose federal funding if they don’t address students by their preferred pronouns or allow them to use facilities corresponding to their gender identity.

The federal government had asked the Supreme Court to partially lift those orders, a relief that would sever the three key provisions while allowing the other unchallenged parts of the rule to go into effect.

Four justices would have let part of the rule take effect, but the full bench agreed that the key changes the federal government has sought to implement, including the re-definition of “sex-based discrimination” to include gender identity and the restrictions on maintaining sex-separated spaces, should remain blocked.

We are one Supreme Court Justice away from insanity.

 

Common Sense From A Legislator?

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Breitbart reported yesterday that Tulsi Gabbard introduced the “Protect Women’s Sports Act” in Congress on Thursday.

The article reports:

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) maintained the distinction between the sexes while addressing critics of her Protect Women’s Sports Act in a Twitter video published on Sunday.

Gabbard introduced the above-mentioned legislation with Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on Thursday. The bill proposes the restriction of federal funds from schools allowing boys and men to compete against girls and women in sports.

Gabbard identified broad physical advantages held by men relative to women as a rationale to segregate the sexes in the context of sports to preserve “a level playing field.”

There are two major aspects of this issue that need to be discussed. The first is the idea of high school boys in high school girls’ locker rooms. I suspect that fathers who remember what it was like to be a teenage boy would not support this idea. The second aspect is equally important. Young women who are outstanding high school athletes are being denied scholarships opportunities because they are losing in competition against biological young men.

Boys competing against boys and girls competing against girls used to be a non-issue, but the cultural warriors who want to undermine our basic societal norms have chosen to make it an issue. The issue of transgender has been pushed on teenagers through social media and added to the confusion that teenagers feel as they are attempting to find their identity. The real victims of this push to undermine what used to be understood are the teenagers who are often pushed into irreversible decisions because of peer pressure and pressure from social media. Parents need to stand up to the cultural warriors and protect their children.