Washington, DC – The 2024 Summer Olympics are just around the corner and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has boasted about the participation of its athletes. Yet the NCAA has still not taken steps to protect a critical portion of those athletes.
Several organizations – including the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport – as well as more than 20 states have recently taken action to protect women’s sports.
This week, I co-authored a letter with 22 of my Republican colleagues urging NCAA President Charlie Baker to revise the University of Connecticut’s policy regarding student-athletes and ensure that only biologically female students can participate in women’s sports.
The foundation of sport is the pursuit of excellence, the maintenance of decency under pressure and fair play among participants. All of this is at risk without a level playing field.
Women deserve a level playing field and equal opportunities. This can only be achieved by ensuring that women’s sports are exclusively female.
Weekly overview
When kids are online, they are the product, and big tech companies are trying every trick in the book to get them to keep scrolling, clicking ads, and sharing every detail of their lives. With Tennessee kids heading back to school, now is the perfect time for parents to learn how to keep their children safe online. My Parent’s Guide to Keeping Kids Online Safe includes important safety tips and resources.
The bipartisan Future of AI Innovation Act, which I co-sponsored with my colleagues to promote coordination between the U.S. government and industry to realize AI’s promise to revolutionize our lives, has passed the Senate Commerce Committee. The bill mobilizes the expertise of our national laboratories, like Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to create testbeds that accelerate breakthrough AI innovations to fuel future economic growth and protect national security. These actions will help us use AI to find solutions to important problems facing Americans today, including detecting fentanyl and illegal contraband and improving border security.
In September 2023, it was revealed that $10.8 million of the funds authorized for critical skills incentive payments were instead used to pay bonuses to Department of Veterans Affairs executives. We must restore integrity and trust within the VA. That’s why my colleagues on the U.S. Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and I introduced the Stop Government Rewards Enriching Executives in the District (Stop GREED) Act to prevent funds authorized to support veterans from being used to fund bonuses for VA executives.
Marsha’s Summary
In case you missed me
Congratulations to all Tennesseans competing in the Paris Olympics! To celebrate this amazing achievement, I led a bipartisan group of my Senate colleagues in introducing a resolution expressing their support for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams competing in the Summer Games. This resolution was passed unanimously by the Senate.
