Morning Wire - Christian School Sports Ban & SVB’s Progressive Investments | 3.18.23

Episode Date: March 18, 2023

A Vermont Christian school has been banned from tournament play across all sports after their girls basketball team refused to play a team with a transgender player, a Claremont Institute report finds that Silicon Valley Bank directed billions of dollars to various progressive causes, and a recent study finds that rates of single young men have skyrocketed. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Epic Will: Save 10% off your complete will package: https://www.epicwill.com/wire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A Vermont Christian school has been banned from tournament play across all sports after their girls' basketball team refused to play a team with a male player who identifies as female. What are the current regulations in the state? And how is the band school responding? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's March 18th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire. A new report from the Claremont Institute found that the recently collapsed Silicon Valley Bank directed billions of dollars to various progressive causes.

What I found was this almost religious adherence to ESG standards, which have really become the standard norm of operations in American financial systems. We have the details. And more and more men are likely to be single. What's causing the rise and what role is technology playing? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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sports issue has once again made national headlines after a Christian school in Vermont was banned from competing in all state tournaments for refusing to play a women's basketball game against a team with a male player who identifies as female. This comes a few months after a Vermont

high school girls volleyball team from a different school was forced out of their locker room after a trans athlete allegedly made an inappropriate remark to other players who then complained. Here to discuss the latest development in the state is sports reporter and craning company co-host David Cohn. Hey, David. Hey, John. So what triggered this and what exactly have Vermont officials done in response? So three weeks ago,

the girls basketball team for Mid-Vermont Christian School forfeited its state tournament matchup against long trail because the latter school was allowing a male to compete on the girls' team. The head of school for MVCS Vicky Fogg initially stated, quote, we believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players. That decision has now led to the 15-member executive council for the Vermont Principles Association, which governs high school athletics in the state to vote unanimously in favor of prohibiting mid-Vermont Christian school from participating in all future VPA activities, meaning this ban extends beyond just basketball. All sports punished as a result.

That's correct. Has there been a statement from the Vermont Principals Association? Yes, Jay Nichols is the executive director of the Principal's Association, and he announced that the VPA, quote, reiterates its ongoing support of transgender student athletes. He said that if the school doesn't want to follow their rules, quote, that's fine, but then you're not a VPA member, unquote. Now, we should note that this has been complicated by. some other recent forfeitures. The association appears to have had a different set of rules in January when several girls' basketball teams refused to play games citing racial slurs as their reasoning.

In reference to that situation, Nichols said, quoting again here, we encourage our kids to speak out from our perspective, that's a good thing, unquote. So taking a stance on a racial issue appears okay, but not a gender issue. It appears that way. Will there be an opportunity for the school to appeal? Yes, there will. The school has made clear that it is frustrated by the decision. Mrs. Fogg issued her own statement.

She said the school is disappointed with the decision of the VPA Executive Council and intends to appeal it. She went on to say, quoting again here, canceling our membership is not a solution and does nothing to deal with the very real issue of safety and fairness facing women's sports in our beloved state. She called on the association to reconsider its policies and balance the rights of every athlete in the state.

Now, it's also worth noting here, John, the Vermont Agency of Education's policy on transgender athletes is a bit ambiguous. It reads in part, quote, generally, students should be permitted to participate in physical education and sports in accordance with the student's gender identity, participation in competitive athletic activities will be resolved on a case-by-case basis.

Okay, so generally there does a lot of work. Exactly. Yet another high-profile case of the gender identity issue directly impacting girls' sports and now those of an entire school. Yes, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Right. Dave, thanks for reporting. Thank you.

That was Crane & Company co-host, David Cohn. The Claremont Institute has released new data detailing the corporate donations of the recently collapsed Silicon Valley Bank and found that it had given tens of millions to the Black Lives Matter movement and pledged to invest billions more in progressive ESG initiatives. Joining us to discuss is Tristan Justice, the Western correspondent for the Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux. So Tristan, you dug into the Claremont database which tracks corporate donations for progressive causes. What did you find on SVB? So on Tuesday, the Conservative Claremont Institute published a new database.

set chronicles to corporate contributions to Black Lives Matter movement and adjacent causes. And so I was scrolling to the database and I found Silicon Valley Bank, which of course just collapsed this month after the investors made a series of bad bets. And so the Claremont Institute found they pledged $74 million to Black Lives Matter groups and related causes. And so what we essentially have here is a bank that was behold into progressive activism that unfortunately led investors to be distracted. So once I saw that $74 million number from the Claremont Institute, I immediately began coming through the public reports from Silicon Valley Bank. Of course, what we have is a massive financial institution, really in the belly of the beast of

Progressive America out in Silicon Valley. So coming through the reports, they're talking religiously about DEI, which is diversity, equity, inclusion. They're touting diversity left and right and touting all of their investments in all these different programs to make it look like a beacon of American progressivism. You say you also saw some investment in climate activism and some rhetoric involving it. Can you unpack that force? So Silicon Valley Bank and its parent corporation invested billions of dollars in climate activism and projects for, quote, green sustainability, which of course is just synonymous with wind turbines and solar power. And of course, that's to the detriment of a reliable American power grid,

which has been reliably running on fossil fuels for decades and decades. And of course, it just kind of plays into this broader culture on Wall Street, this religious adherence to ESG standards, which is, of course, the detriment of not only the American consumer, but also their shareholders. The bank's commitment to ESG that you mentioned at the top, how broadly does that impact the banking industry as a whole? Well, the risk from ESG is industry-wide. I mean, these are becoming almost religious principles among Wall Street financial firms. You have BlackRock, J.P. Morgan Chase, the signature bank, which also just collapsed. You have all these financial firms that are trying to a virtue signal to compete for investors and

shareholders playing into this ESG scam, which is, of course, for any American consumer, jeopardizing national security. BlackRock last year lost $2 trillion. It's the largest asset management firm in the world. And they began last year with $10 trillion in assets, and they finished 2022 with $8 trillion. And so now you have calls for their thing to resign and step down from state treasurers who are also divesting their funds of taxpayer dollars from these financial firms that are not only exploiting their own constituents tax dollars against them, but they're putting their fiduciary duty at risk. Well, Tristan, thank you so much for joining us. That was the federalist, Tristan Justice.

A recent study is making waves after finding that rates of singleness among young men have skyrocketed, with the group now twice as likely to be without a partner compared to young women. The report comes as other data shows Americans are less sexually active than they have been in decades. Here with more on what's driving the trend and its cultural implications is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, this story has been making the rounds online. You've dug into it. What can you tell us? Well, a number of recent studies and surveys have shown a massive shift in the dating and sex lives of Americans, especially among young men. The latest numbers from Pew Research show that 30% of Americans consider themselves single, but when you look at those under the age of 30, those numbers skyrocket. While 34% of young women are single, 63% of young women are single.

63% of young men say they're without a partner. That's the highest mark among that demographic on record and up from 51% back in 2019. It's worth noting that's also the largest disparity between the genders that we've seen on record. Now, we've also seen interesting trends regarding sexual activity among young Americans. Tell us about that. Yeah, a slew of recent studies have shown that a larger share of Americans are sexually inactive than at any point on record. For example, the latest general social survey found that 26% of American

adults had not had sex in the last year, that's the highest number in the history of the survey. You can kind of see the trend here, a lot of records being broken. And among young men, 30% reported having not had sex in the last year. That's triple what we saw in 2008. While another recent study shows that 27% of young men report having had no sex since they turned 18. For context, that number was 8% as recently as 2008. Wow, so a major increase. So to the million dollar question, what are the causes for these trends? Well, technology has played a massive and undeniable role. Researchers point to two main elements on that front, social media and pornography. With regard to social media, millions of young people have replaced regular social

interaction with online activity. So while they may feel like they're in constant communication with friends or people of the opposite gender, they're spending less time out and about meeting people in real life. So the opportunities to find a partner have simply gone down. And the role of pornography on this trend simply cannot be overstated. As porn has become instantly available to virtually everyone. Many people, especially young men, have less of a desire to go on a date or find a girlfriend because they have a low risk, low effort means of sexual gratification. And it's a pretty destructive cycle. The science is overwhelming that porn negatively impacts sex drive, inhibits dopamine production, increases the odds of erectile dysfunction and leads to less satisfaction in real life sexual encounters. Sociologists almost universally point to porn as one of the key issues in this negative trend that we're seeing. There are also some cultural aspects at play here. What do we know about that? Well, culturally, as more women enter the workforce

and delay having children to focus on their careers, sociologists say that they often become more choosy when it comes to settling down, and they often prioritize men in more stable situations with more professional success, and those types of men tend to be older. Researchers say that could account for who exactly the 66% of young women

in relationships are dating and why you're not seeing the same number among younger men. There's also the reality that men and women are just waiting longer than ever to get married. Right now, the average age of first marriage is 30 for men and 28 for women. In 1990, it was 26 and 24 respectively. So a lot of young people, they're single just because they aren't interested in a serious partner. Yeah, that makes sense. What role did isolation from COVID lockdowns play here?

Well, it's impossible to know exactly how big of a role lockdowns played, but we do know that they certainly contributed to higher rates of loneliness, and obviously that's going to impact dating and sex. While both men and women said their social circles shrank during the pandemic, it was men who struggled more. Since 2020, multiple studies have shown that men reported having fewer friends and social gatherings than women. And to that point, the latest numbers from the Survey Center on American Life showed that 15% of men now report having no close friends. In 1990, instead of 15%, that number was just 3%. So a five-fold increase in the span of three decades.

Well, yeah, a whirring trend on multiple fronts. Kappa, thanks for reporting. Anytime. That's Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips. Other stories we're tracking this week. Two BNSF trains derailed in separate incidents in Arizona and Washington State on Thursday, with the Washington incident spilling diesel fuel on tribal land along Puget Sound. No injuries were reported.

It wasn't clear what caused either derailment. The American Kennel Club announced Wednesday that for the first time in more than 30 years, Labrador retrievers have been replaced as America's favorite dog. In 2023, French Bulldogs became the most popular breed. The AKC's top 10 for 2020 were French Bulldogs, Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, Poodles, Bulldogs, Rottweilers, Beagles, Doxins, and German short-haired pointers. Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and stand with our mission, consider subscribing, leaving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend.

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