Despite its enormous successes, efforts to gut Title IX have been non-stop since the federal law was passed in 1972. As early as 1974, the NCAA tried to remove athletics, or some men, from Title IX. The NCAA attempted to exempt “revenue-generating” sports at least four times while the Title IX regulations were being drafted. And each time, Congress rejected their efforts, in large part due to your overwhelming public support for women’s sports. (See, Nancy Hogshead’s book with Andrew Zimbalist, Equal Play; Title IX and Social Change
)
Over time, many others have tried to weaken Title IX, often through proposals to exempt football or men’s basketball… as though these sports are not part of a college or university’s umbrella operations.
The anti-trust House v. NCAA
Settlement does not specify how the new payments are to be distributed. The Settlement does not
specifically authorize schools to violate Title IX. Yet that hasn’t stopped schools from distributing cash unfairly, with roughly these proportions:
- 75% to football players,
- 15% to men's basketball players,
- 5% to women's basketball players, and
- 5% to other men's and women's sports.
We are relying on these figures from athletics administrators to the media, because schools haven’t made their distributions public. But even without public disclosures, we know these payments will be paid overwhelmingly to male football and basketball players; a result that would have been unthinkable under the law just a few years ago.
Predictably, women’s sports and other men’s Olympic sports are being cut as funds are redirected to support “priority” male athletes.
Without your help, female athletes will continue to have fewer opportunities for participation, financial aid, and fair treatment. A 2024 government report
found that 93% of schools are not complying with the 54 year-old law, and few have invested as much in women's sports as they have in men’s sports, producing glaring inequalities.
(We suggest comparing the school’s softball and baseball facilities, as just one example.) The House v. NCAA
settlement will dramatically exacerbate these fundamental inequalities.
Women's College Sports Need Your Help!
Here’s where you come in. Before April 10th, please consider responding to this “Request for Information: Stabilizing College Sports and Preserving Opportunities for Athletes,”
prepared by the Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Bill Cassidy. You can answer any one or more
of their 25 open-ended questions. Or, given that time is an issue for all of us, you might just answer what many of us consider the most important Title IX question, one of only two that mentions women, Olympic Sports, or Title IX!
- “How does revenue sharing under the House Settlement affect schools’ ability to comply with Title IX requirements?”
Feel free to use your own words or borrow from the suggested language.
Most importantly, Congress must:
1) Clarify that Title IX covers all benefits to athletes, including financial benefits.
Whether these funds are called NIL, revenue-sharing, or the money comes from a school’s “collective”, or something else, common sense shows that money given to athletes falls under the term “benefits” under Title IX, given the statute’s wording:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex,
be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of
, or
be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity
receiving Federal financial assistance.
In other words, NCAA member institutions must continue to be obliged to provide equitable benefits to men and women in the aggregate, respectively.
2) Mandate the NCAA to require Title IX compliance as a condition of membership.
The NCAA must require its members to undergo Title IX assessments every three years, conducted by their sports conferences or another third party, with one year to fix any deficiencies identified, or face ineligibility for post-season championship participation.
If you have time for more… terrific! You don’t need to answer them all–only the ones you feel most strongly about.
Please submit any responses to opportunitiesforathletes@help.senate.gov
by April 10, 2026. Thank you!
