UChicago Backtracks On Gender Being Fluid After Pushback

The University of Chicago has recently removed a statement where they defined gender identity as self-identified and unrelated to biological sex after being reminded of their claimed adherence to institutional neutrality by the Chicago Thinker.

The Annual Confirmation, a mandatory form in UChicago’s student portal that students must complete to register for courses, asks students to verify logistical information such as their name, ethnicity, and emergency contacts. However, in an optional section titled “Gender Identity,” students were allowed to disclose “self-identified gender identities,” with the University further providing a left-wing institutional definition of gender with no reference to biological sex: “Gender or gender identity is based on a group of emotional, behavioral, and psychological characteristics that typically classify an individual as ‘woman’ or ‘man’ or ‘genderqueer/gender non-conforming’ or ‘transgender.’ Gender can be understood to have several components including gender identity, gender expression, and gender attributions.”

The Kalven Report, which has long guided the university’s commitment to institutional neutrality, states: “The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic… a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures.” According to an AP-Norc poll, 68% of Americans assert that gender is determined by biological sex.