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Mr. TUBERVILLE. Madam President, just imagine: It is a Tuesday night in October. The shuffle of shoes screech across the waxed court, the buzzer sounds, and the crowd erupts in cheers as the home team scores the winning point. Clinching the first-place title, the home team gathers at center court, each player grinning from ear to ear. The excitement is tangible. It was a hard-fought season and a well-earned first-place title. The trophy is presented, pictures are taken, and team members high-five each other as fans charge the court to congratulate the winning team.
What I just described are the final seconds of a high school girls' basketball game. Those who have witnessed a buzzer-beater win know there is nothing like it. For the players, the fans, the parents, and all involved, it is a prized moment and a memory that will never be forgotten. But it is not just a memory; it is a valuable learning experience.
Over the span of a year, teammates dedicate hundreds of hours of late-night and early morning practices. They overcome conflicts. They work together. They practice self-discipline. They perfect their craft. And they knew, if they gave it all, they would have a chance to be victorious with all this hard work and effort.
I saw these learning experiences unfold time and time again throughout my 40-year career as a coach, educator, and mentor. A great deal has changed in the world of women's athletics since I began my career coaching high school girls' basketball almost 40 years ago. What an experience.
Almost 50 years ago, female athletics received less than 2 percent of college athletic budgets, and athletic scholarships for women were virtually nonexistent. Only 1 in 27 girls participated in intercollegiate sports in the United States 50 years ago--1 in 27.
Since the 1970s, female participation in sports at the collegiate level has risen by more than 600 percent, and today 43 percent of the high school girls whom we have in school today participate in sports, up from 5 percent 50 years ago.
These strides in women's athletics did not just happen by circumstance. They are the result of title IX protections passed by Congress in 1972 in this very room where we are today. Title IX provided females a long-denied platform that had always been afforded to males only. It ensured female athletes had the same access to funding, facilities, and athletic scholarships. That was title IX.
It is an unquestionable truth that biological males have a physiological advantage over females. Title IX acknowledged that truth for the benefit of women's athletics. To break it down even more, one study states: On average, males have 40 to 50 percent greater upper limb strength, 20 to 40 percent greater lower limb strength, and an average of 12 pounds more skeletal muscle mass than age-matched females at any given body weight.
Title IX sent an incredible--incredible--message to female athletes across the Nation. That message was: You can compete; you can win; and you will be afforded a fair and level playing field to do so. Because of these reasons, decades later, we know title IX has been a monumental success for female athletes across this country.
As the 50th anniversary of title IX approaches at the end of this month, we should be celebrating female athletes who were given the opportunity to win first place, to learn the life lessons sports teaches each individual, and to overcome obstacles and reach their God- given potential. We should be asking ourselves how we can preserve title IX so female athletes 50 years from now can experience the same euphoric feeling of hard work and hard-earned victory.
But, unfortunately, with the Biden administration's proposal, in the next few weeks, we will lose title IX protections for female athletes as we know it. Later this month, it is expected that President Biden's Department of Education will publish a proposed rule to change title IX to align more with the administration's progressive agenda.
These proposed changes would require schools to allow biological males to compete in women's sports. It would take a wrecking ball to five decades of title IX success and tilt what was a level playing field to the far left. With the Biden administration's proposal, female athletes will lose. We cannot allow title IX's protections for female athletes to be eroded. It has been too much of a success.
I plan to continue leading efforts against this misguided policy to ensure no Federal action will negatively impact female athletes. Recently, I have spoken with numerous female athletes who were able to compete and win because of title IX. Additionally, I introduced an amendment to prohibit Federal funding to schools that allow biological males to compete in women's sports.
I have also repeatedly called for the Senate to pass the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, legislation I helped introduce that would ensure the definition of ``sex'' in title IX is based on ``solely a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth'' and prohibit Federal funding to institutions that do not uphold that definition.
Just last week, I sent a letter to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Cardona, warning the administration to rethink this rule change. The Biden administration's title IX rule flies in the face of the so-called science that Democrats are quick to pledge their allegiance to by ignoring the scientific differences in biological makeup of male and female athletes. Apparently, science only holds water when it conforms to the Democrats' partisan agenda.
Allowing biological males to compete in women's sports will set women's rights back 50 years to a time before title IX. It will discourage young girls from entering the court, jumping in the pool, walking on the field because they will know they will have to compete with the deck stacked against them; they can only hope to win second place, at best.
So the bottom line is that there is really no pregame speech or halftime talk you can give to a woman or a girl who feels like they aren't competing on a fair playing field, like 50 years ago. With this proposed rule, girls will be playing for second.
The Biden administration should do the right thing and rethink their decision that would destroy female athletics as we know it today.
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