Long- lost Enterprise model boldly goes home
DALLAS » The first model of the USS Enterprise — used in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series — has boldly gone back home, returning to creator Gene Roddenberry’s son decades after it went missing.
The model’s disappearance sometime in the 1970s had become the subject of lore, so it caused a stirwhen it popped up on ebay last fall.
The sellers quickly took it down and contacted Dallasbased Heritage Auctions to authenticate it.
Last weekend the auction house facilitated the model’s return.
Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said he’s thrilled to have the model that had graced the desk of his father, who died in 1991 at age 70.
“This is not going home to adorn my shelves,” Roddenberry said. “This is going to get restored, and we’re working on ways to
of deep conflict with Republicans.
The 1972 law doesn’t directly address the issue, but the new rules clarify that Title IX also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ+ students who face discrimination will be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government.
Many Republicans say Congress never intended such protections under Title IX. A federal judge previously blocked Biden administration guidance to the same effect after 20 Republicanled states challenged the policy.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.”
and chairwoman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the new regulation threatens decades of advancement for women and girls.
“This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender,” Foxx said in a statement.
In the past few years, many Republican- controlled states have adopted laws restricting the rights of transgender children, including banning genderaffirming medical care for minors. And at least 11 states restrict which bathrooms and locker rooms transgender students can use, banning them fromusing facilities that alignwith their gender identity.
Heritage’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said the auction house was contacted by people who said they’d discovered it a storage unit, and when it was brought into their Beverly Hills office, he and a colleague “instantly knew that it was the real thing.”
They reached out to Roddenberry, who said he appreciates that everyone involved agreed returning the model was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t go into details on the agreement reached but said “I felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that.”
Maddalena said the model vanished in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry loaned it tomakers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” whichwas released in 1979.
“No one knew what happened to it,” Rod Roddenberry said.
The 3- foot model of the USS Enterprisewas used in the show’s original pilot episode
But the rule makes clear that treating transgender students differently from their classmates is discrimination, putting the state bathroom restrictions in jeopardy, said Francicso M. Negron Jr., an attorney who specializes in education law.
The revision was proposed nearly two years ago but has been slowed by a comment period that drew 240,000 responses, a record for the Education Department.
Many of the changes are meant to ensure that schools and colleges respond to complaints of sexual misconduct. In general, the rules widen the type of misconduct that institutions are required to address, and it grants more protections to students who bring accusations. as well as the opening credits of the resulting TV series, and was the prototype for the 11- foot version featured in the series’ episodes. The larger model is on display at the Smithsonian’snational Air andspace Museum.
The original “Star Trek” television series, which aired in the late 1960s, kicked off an ever- expanding multiverse of cultural phenomena, with TV and movie spinoffs and conventions where a fanbase of zealous and devoted fans can’t get enough of memorabilia.
This USS Enterprise model easily would sell for more than$ 1million at auction, but really “it’s priceless,” Maddalena said.
“It could sell for any amount, and I wouldn’t be surprisedbecause of what it is,” he said. “It is truly a cultural icon.”
Roddenberry, who was just a young boy when the model went missing, said
Chief among the changes is a wider definition of sexual harassment. Schools now must address any unwelcome sex- based conduct that is so “severe or pervasive” that it limits a student’s equal access to an education.
Under the Devos rules, conduct had to be “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive,” a higher bar that pushed some types of misconduct outside the purview of Title IX.
Colleges will no longer be required to hold live hearings to allow students to cross- examine one another through representatives — a signature provision from the Devos rules.
Live hearings are allowed under the Biden rules, but they’re optional.
Those hearings were a he has spotty memories of it, “almost a deja vu.” He said it wasn’t something he thought much about until people began contacting him after it appeared on ebay.
“I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created,” he said.
He said he has no idea if there was something nefarious behind the disappearance all those decades ago or if it was just mistakenly lost, but it would be interesting to find out more about what happened.
“This piece is incredibly important, and it has its own story. And this would be a great piece of the story,” Roddenberry said.
Thankfully, he said, the discovery has cleared up one rumor: That it was destroyed because as a young boy, he had thrown it into a pool.
“Finally I’m vindicated after all these years,” he said with a laugh.
major point of contention with victims’ advocates, who said it forced sexual assault survivors to face their attackers and discouraged people from reporting assaults. Supporters said it gave accused students a fair process to question their accusers, arguing that universities had become too quick to rule against accused students.
Victims’ advocates the changes.
The Devos rules were themselves an overhaul of an Obama- era policy that was intended to force colleges to take accusations of campus sexual assaultmore seriously. Now, after years of nearly constant changes, some colleges have been pushing for a political middle ground to end thewhiplash. applauded