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MEDIA RSVP TO [email protected]
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
The PITCH
462 W Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Thursday, June 20
5:30 pm
(doors open at 5:00 pm)
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CHAPEL HILL, NC — On Thursday, June 20, members of the media are invited to attend and cover the Our Bodies, Our Sports “Take Back Title IX” Summer 2024 Bus Tour in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This rally-style event will feature current and former athletes, coaches, and prominent women’s advocates, including former UNC-Chapel Hill women’s basketball head coach Sylvia Hatchell, several Division I NCAA North Carolina athletes, and well-known North Carolina former high school athlete and women’s advocate Payton McNabb, whose voice and story was integral in the passage of the state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
Women’s and girls’ equal athletic opportunity, privacy, and safety will take a devastating blow when the Biden administration’s illegal Title IX regulations take effect on August 1. The new Title IX rules strip away protections for women — including robbing women of equal opportunity, privacy, and fairness and cheating female athletes out of their trophies, roster spots, playing time, and resources — and giving them to men. This doesn’t enforce Title IX, it violates it. That was true before the Biden administration dropped this rule, and it is still true today.
The bus tour is hosted by Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition, the nation’s first and only coalition of women’s advocacy organizations from across the political spectrum fighting to protect women’s sports. The coast-to-coast bus tour features events open to the public, as well as press conferences, held in cities and towns throughout the nation to build upon the widespread support to protect women’s sports.
EVENT DETAILS:
WHAT: Our Bodies, Our Sports “Take Back Title IX” Summer 2024 Bus Tour Rallies in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
WHY: Our Bodies, Our Sports is hitting the road from coast to coast this summer, activating supporters across the country to take back Title IX and stand up for women’s sports. New regulations put out by the Biden administration violate Title IX, the statute they claim to enforce, by requiring schools to open up women’s spaces to males.
WHO: The Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition formed in 2022 to defend women’s sports and the integrity of the female sporting category. Our Bodies, Our Sports is the nation’s first and only coalition of women’s advocacy organizations from across the political spectrum fighting for equal opportunity and fairness in women’s sports.
This event is open to the public. Current and former student athletes and teams of all ages, parents, families, coaches, and other interested parties are encouraged to attend.
SPEAKERS TO INCLUDE:
- Coach Sylvia Hatchell, former UNC CHapel Hill women’s basketball head coach, sixth all-time winningest coach in women’s college basketball, the only coach to win national championships at three different levels – AIAW, NAIA, and NCAA
- Payton McNabb, former North Carolina high school volleyball player who was severely injured by a male on the women’s volleyball court, Independent Women’s Forum ambassador, advocate for North Carolina’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act
- Kylee Alons, NCAA 31x All American, 2x NCAA National Champion, and 5x ACC Swimming Champion at North Carolina State University, Young Women for America Ambassador, and plaintiff in Gaines et. al. v NCAA
- Madisan DeBos, Southern Utah University D1 cross country and track athlete whose relay team competed against a male athlete
- Selina Soule, 4x track and field National Qualifier forced out of regional championships due to males taking women’s spots
- Macy Petty, former NCAA volleyball player and Young Women for America Ambassador
- Evie Edwards, former NCAA cross country athlete, elite women’s cyclist who has raced over 300 world cycling events and, in 2017, competed at the UCI Track Cycling World Championship where a male took the women’s title, and she is the mother of an elementary-age female cyclist
- Irene Lawrence, public action coordinator for Women’s Declaration International USA
- Katie Blankinship, NCAA athlete on the Roanoke College Women’s Swim Team, one of the women on the team who spoke out against allowing a biological male to join their Division III Women’s Swim Team
- Carter Satterfield, NCAA athlete on the Roanoke College Women’s Swim Team, one of the women on the team who spoke out against allowing a biological male to join their Division III Women’s Swim Team, and plaintiff in Gaines et al v NCAA
- + MORE!
**Mult-box will be provided.**
**There will be media Q&A and opportunities for pull asides.**
Please direct all RSVPs and media inquiries to [email protected]. Press credentials provided on location.
BACKGROUND:
TAKE BACK TITLE IX SUMMER 2024 BUS TOUR
The tour kicked off with two events in Pennsylvania, events in Whitefish, Montana; Las Vegas, Nevada; Scottsdale, Arizona; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; and from there, traveled through Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas before reaching West Virginia. The bus continues its coast-to-coast tour throughout the month of June, holding events throughout the nation.
The tour builds on the momentum the Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition has built over the past two years standing up for women and girls — creating the largest, most ideologically diverse women’s movement of our time.
The Our Bodies, Our Sports coalition formed in 2022 to defend women’s sports and the integrity of the female sporting category. Despite political and ideological differences, members of the coalition stand together with gratitude for the generations of female athletes who came before us and in defense of all the women and girls who will come next.
Coalition members include Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), Champion Women, Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, International Consortium on Female Sports (ICFS), Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), the US chapter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI USA), Concerned Women for America (CWA), Young Women for America, Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC), and Independent Women’s Network (IWN).
Our Bodies, Our Sports believes that taking opportunities from women and giving them to men doesn’t enforce Title IX, it violates it. That was true before the Biden administration dropped its new Title IX rule, and it is still true today.
Surrounding the 52nd anniversary of Title IX, the “Take Back Title IX” tour will roll into Washington, D.C. and hold a rally event on Tuesday, June 25, to commemorate the final annual celebration of the landmark sex equality law before the Biden administration’s unlawful rewrite upends Title IX as we have always known it. The new regulations strip away all sex-based protections in education, undermine women’s rights, and require schools to allow males to self-identify into women’s spaces, opportunities, and athletics.
The final stretch of the tour takes place during National Women’s Sports Week, initiated by Independent Women’s Forum in 2022 and observed annually during the week of June 23. In recognition of Women’s Sports Week, June 23-June 29, the tour is planning two special events featuring music performances in Washington, DC and Nashville, TN to celebrate female athletes – past, present, and future – for their athletic participation and achievement in sport.
Click HERE to see upcoming stops on the tour.
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