President Donald Trump visited the University of Alabama on Thursday and extended his best wishes to the 2025 graduating class. Following his words of encouragement, he made several political references revealing his focus on higher education, primarily regarding male involvement in women’s sports.
“As long as I’m president, we will always protect women’s sports,” he said after congratulating the university’s latest athletic accomplishments. “Men will not play in women’s schools. No way!”
One piece of advice he gave the graduates was to trust their instincts. Stay rooted in common-sense ideas.
“You can go very far in life with common sense,” he said. “And I apply that to politics.” For instance, soon after taking office, his administration announced it would be enforcing Trump’s 2020 Title IX ruling, which requires protections on the basis of biological sex in schools and campuses.
During the speech, he pointed to the injuries female athletes endure while competing against transgender females. He often references Payton McNabb, a former volleyball player who experienced a serious neck injury and partial paralysis after receiving a spike from a male athlete who identified as transgender.
“You look at the volleyball players that have been hurt so badly with balls that are hit at levels that they’ve never seen before,” said Trump.
Transgender involvement in sports is just one of several Biden-era policies the president is trying to reverse. In the Trump administration’s announcement of its Title IX regulations, it argued that Biden’s attempt to rewrite Title IX was “an unlawful abuse of regulatory power.”
“Under the Trump Administration, the Education Department will champion equal opportunity for all Americans, including women and girls, by protecting their right to safe and separate facilities and activities in school, colleges and universities,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said at the time.
Trump also celebrated Alabama and its state leaders for choosing “liberty over lockdowns” at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The class of 2025 was the first to enter the halls of this university in the aftermath of COVID-19,” he said. “Following a difficult senior year of high school, many of you came here to Tuscaloosa from around the country. And for the first time, you experienced something called freedom.”
The promise of a ‘Golden Age’
Trump said this year’s graduating class will be the first to enter what he’s labeled the Golden Age of America. He reflected on his first 100 days in office, acknowledging that his administration has done things “that nobody thought even possible.”
“Like many generations before you, you’re graduating at an exciting time for our nation, a period of both extraordinary change and incredible potential and what will be unbelievable growth,” he said. “You’re going to see that very soon.”
He challenged the graduates to be pioneers of this great change, each according to their strengths. He tasked business majors to apply their skills to forge the steel and pour the concrete of new American factories. He told the engineers to build America the world’s tallest buildings, the fastest airplanes and the greatest cars.
He also wants the next generation to quit thinking of themselves as victims and instead take charge of their own destiny and determine their fate, despite all odds.
“Whether you were born rich or poor, Black or white, male or female, in America, anyone can be a winner,” he said. “And our whole country will be cheering you on. And I’ll be at the front of the line cheering you, especially because you come from this incredible university.”
