Weird v. Normal

on school lunches and title IX (a post from Belle)

Greetings, Frog Troublers! Did you watch the Democratic National Convention this week? The big speeches were on way too late for the girls, but we did watch the electrifying roll call. And something about the discourse must have caught on because at the store yesterday, Bea called Harriet weird for not liking vanilla ice cream. “I’m not weird,” Harriet insisted. “Weird is for Donald Trump.”

Noted!

I love the way one word, “weird,” illustrates the distinction between Republican and Democratic values and actions with such clarity. The logic is so simple that a brand-new first grader could understand it.

I want to tell you two stories today, both about these values in action—for good and for bad—at the local level, but aided by national forces (also for good and for bad).

Let’s start with the good story:

In Chatham County, where we live, every single kid, from pre-K through high school. will have access to free school breakfast and free school lunch this year—no paperwork, no bills, no need to worry if there’s money in the account.

This is thanks to our wonderful school board and the professionals in our district office, who applied for federal funding through the US Department of Agriculture. Instead of collecting information at the school level to give all kids free lunch, or to give individual families access, the district was able to apply on behalf of our community. The school board and district office chose to cover the remaining amount (around $500,000) not provided for by the USDA program.

Eight states have universal free lunch, with more on the way. The most famous, thanks to Tim Walz, is Minnesota, where as governor he signed the school meal bill into law in 2023. “What a monster! Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn,” Walz has joked when Republicans call him radical.

But it’s also true that Project 2025 recommends ending universal school lunch programs, calling them a waste of money and an “entitlement program” (p. 302).

Imagine, being worried about kids entitled to eat lunch and breakfast at public schools! While also wanting to defund public schools! And give more tax money to rich people. Those guys are so weird. So are North Carolina’s Republican legislators, who you can be sure would never allow universal free lunch to happen in our state.

Which is why we need to end their supermajority and elect Josh Stein for Governor and Democrats all the way down the ticket.

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Here’s the bad story:

I know you can handle this because we are still in the echoes of all those powerful and inspiring speakers—President and First Lady Obama! Oprah Winfrey! Governor Roy Cooper! Vice President Kamala Harris!!—who told us hopeful things, but also very real things. Here’s my favorite part of Michelle Obama’s speech:

Look, because cutting our health care, taking away our freedom to control our bodies, the freedom to become a mother through I.V.F., like I did — those things are not going to improve the health outcomes of our wives, mothers and daughters. Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books — none of that will prepare our kids for the future. Demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love, look, that doesn’t make anybody’s life better. Instead, instead, it only makes us small. And let me tell you this: Going small is never the answer. Going small is the opposite of what we teach our kids. Going small is petty. It’s unhealthy. And quite frankly, it’s unpresidential.

“Going small” is unfortunately what some folks, even in my own beloved Chatham County, are trying to do.

As you may remember, we have a local chapter of Moms for Liberty, the SPLC-designated extremist group that has, at the national, state, and local levels, promoted book bans, anti-trans legislation, anti-LGBT legilslation, and private school vouchers. They’ve caused ruckuses at school boards across the country, including ours, and have endorsed candidates whose only qualifications are causing havoc.

The current Moms for Liberty focus, at the national and local levels, is Title IX. In April of this year, Title IX expanded to include gender identity among the classes protected from discrimination in our schools and universities.

Though most of us think of Title IX as it applies to sports—women’s sports, specifically—it is also a very important law protecting anyone in school settings from being harassed or discriminated against. Here’s what the new regulations do, according to the U.S. Department of Education:

• Protect against all sex-based harassment and discrimination. The final rule protects all students and employees from all sex discrimination prohibited under Title IX, including by restoring and strengthening full protection from sexual violence and other sex-based harassment. The rule clarifies the steps a school must take to protect students, employees, and applicants from discrimination based on pregnancy or related conditions. And the rule protects against discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.

• Promote accountability and fairness. The final rule promotes accountability by requiring schools to take prompt and effective action to end any sex discrimination in their education programs or activities, prevent its recurrence, and remedy its effects. The final rule requires schools to respond promptly to all complaints of sex discrimination with a fair, transparent, and reliable process that includes trained, unbiased decisionmakers to evaluate all relevant and not otherwise impermissible evidence.

• Empower and support students and families. The final rule protects against retaliation for students, employees, and others who exercise their Title IX rights. The rule requires schools to communicate their nondiscrimination policies and procedures to all students, employees, and other participants in their education programs so that students and families understand their rights. The rule supports the right of parents and guardians to act on behalf of their elementary school and secondary school children. And the rule protects student privacy by prohibiting schools from making disclosures of personally identifiable information with limited exceptions.

You can think of Title IX as a set of protections for students and teachers. As a professor, I consult our Title IX officer when I have a student who comes to me with a question about sex discrimination in classes, with their peers, or with accommodations on campus. The Title IX officers are professional, unbiased, thorough evaluators who consider the issue from all sides, and, at least in my experience, resolve the situatuation in a way that is respectful and fair to all and generally doesn’t involve lawsuits. It’s a safeguard I appreciate and value, and I know that my students do too. The expansion of Title IX simply means that gender identity, including trans and nonbinary identities, will also be protected.

The weirdos at Moms for Liberty—most recently in national news for various scandals, and largely considered to be “flaming out” as a group—seized this opportunity to file their own lawsuit, claiming that this new Title IX expansion violates their members’ rights to religous freedom, among other things. Their kids should be free to call your kids by the pronouns they believe are “correct”—otherwise that’s lying to God. They don’t want transgender kids to play on sports teams that reflect their gender identity. They don’t want teachers to get in trouble for purposefully misgendering or harassing trans or nonbinary kids.

In lay terms, the Trump-appointed Kansas judge who heard their case basically said, “okay, sure. Tell me which schools should be on that list and we’ll block it.” Without proof or documentation, Moms for Liberty was allowed to submit a list of any school where they have a member or even a potential member. More than 200 NC schools are on the list.

Including ours.

We don’t have gender-based sports teams—contrary to what Moms for Liberty wants you to believe, this is not about protecting womens’ sports. It’s about protecting gender-based bullies, and making schools an unwelcome place for some kids to learn. Now, I’m sure that at our beloved school we don’t have teachers who would bully trans kids. I hope we don’t have kids who would do that.

But because of a small group of moms—one who published this piece in the Chatham Journal—trans and nonbinary kids in all but four schools in our country will not have the protection that cisgender kids have. And cisgender kids may also be subjected to watching bullies express their “religious freedom.”

This has all happened not because we had any kind of discussion about it, or because members publicly shared that they have a problem with the law, but because one mom, in particular, chooses (again and again) to go small. Her group’s scramble to register almost all Chatham County schools meant an emergency school board meeting and a disruption and retraining of school staffs at their busiest time of year.

For me, the debates over public schools illustrate what’s at stake in this election. Do we stand with the normal, caring folks who want all kids to be free from bullies (and with fully bellies)? Or do we stand with the weirdos who want their own kids to learn bullying behavior (and also, I’m just guessing here, oppose free school lunch)?

As Michelle Obama said, “This is our time to stand up for what we know in our hearts is right. To stand up not just for our basic freedoms, but for decency and humanity.”

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We’ll be celebrating decency and humanity at an authors’ fundraising event for Josh Stein tonight with the wonderful Jill McCorkle and Tom Rankin. Dozens of North Carolina authors, including me and Bea, have donated books to raise money. See if you can spot Plant Pets on the table:

I’ll also be auctioning a kayak trip on the Haw River for two lucky ducks. If you’d like to go to this fun and exciting Hillsborough event, you can sign up here. I will tell you the total amount raised next week (so far, it’s a lot)!

Speaking of lucky ducks, yesterday we took a beautiful Haw River float and met this friendly mallard, who swam with us a while and seemed to want some snacks (we didn’t have any).

And we hope to see many of you next Saturday, August 31, at McIntyre’s Books for Bea’s Plant Pets book launch from 11-12. We’ll have a propagation activity (you’ll go home with a plant baby in a pretty glass bottle!), a short reading/discussion, and DONUTS! (We were planning cake, but Bea pointed out that donuts are better for the morning.) Keebe says Bea is the youngest author McIntyre’s has ever hosted! Just look how proud she is to be on their chalkboard events sign:

Plant Pets publishes on Tuesday!

You can get your signed copy at McIntyre’s. If you’re not local, you can help us out by pre-ordering Plant Pets from McIntyre’s (they will ship signed copies), your local favorite bookstore, or even from Amazon (leave a review so people can find it!).

Have you ordered your copy yet? Are you ready for the school year to start, and for cooler weather? Can you believe the stores have Halloween candy on the shelves already?