Title IX Is A Lie

Gophergrad

30 Nov 2025 — 8 min read

Originally published 10/16/2025

Title IX at 50

The law that was supposed to guarantee equality in college sports has become a shield for inequality. Universities hide behind compliance while women fight for scraps of fairness. It's time to stop celebrating paperwork and start demanding justice.

The Weight Room

In March 2021, Oregon forward Sedona Prince posted a video that showed what Title IX compliance actually looks like. The NCAA women's basketball tournament weight room contained a single rack of dumbbells. The men had a complete facility. "It's 2021 and we are still fighting for bits and pieces of equality," she said. ¹ Stanford strength coach Ali Kershner posted side-by-side photos. ² The NCAA claimed it lacked space. That lie lasted one day.

Public rage forced an audit. By 2022, the NCAA increased the women's tournament budget by $6.1 million and finally branded it "March Madness". ³ The 2024 women's championship drew 18.7 million viewers, more than the men's final. ⁴

That change didn't come from federal enforcement or congressional action. It came from players who risked their careers to show the truth. They did what the law refuses to do.

This is Title IX at fifty: a compliance system that protects inequality while universities issue press releases about "equity milestones." The law that promised revolution delivers paperwork.

Compliance, Not Equity

Title IX's text never mentions athletics. Congress wrote thirty-seven words about classroom discrimination: "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." ⁵

The Department of Education expanded this to sports in 1979, creating the "three-part test.” ⁶ Schools could comply by offering proportional participation, expanding women's programs, or showing they met women's athletic interests. Universities chose the easiest path. Each subsequent clarification weakened enforcement. By 2005, OCR was suggesting schools needed "further specific guidance," ⁷ code for making compliance easier.

A 2024 Government Accountability Office report found that OCR "primarily [oversees] compliance by investigating complaints and conducts few proactive activities." ⁸ The agency opened only a handful of compliance reviews nationwide. ⁹ Schools write their own reports and keep their funding. That's surrender, not enforcement.

The Numbers

The data tells the real story of Title IX's failure:

The Women's Sports Foundation reported that girls today still have fewer high school participation opportunities than boys had when the law passed in 1972. ¹⁰ Fifty years of progress, and we haven't reached the starting line.

In Power Five conferences, women's sports receive less than one-third of total spending, according to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database. ¹¹ The NCAA's own data shows Football Bowl Subdivision schools generate median revenue over $71 million annually. ¹² Football and men's basketball consume nearly every dollar.

Television coverage remains frozen in time. A USC study found women's sports receive about 5% of coverage. ¹³ Purdue researchers confirmed coverage levels match the 1980s. ¹⁴ Networks shoot men's games like cinema and women's games like afterthoughts.

Name, image, and likeness deals opened new inequality. The Knight Commission reported that 95% of House v. NCAA damages will go to football and basketball players. ¹⁵ When OCR tried extending Title IX to NIL deals in 2025, political pressure forced immediate reversal. ¹⁶ Men dominate this new revenue stream while universities call it market reality. It's discrimination disguised as capitalism.

Gaming the System

Schools discovered how to fake compliance without creating equity. Sports Management Resources exposed "roster padding," where schools inflate women's team lists to meet federal ratios while never actually fielding those players. ¹⁷ Some count male practice players as women. Others list names of women who never compete.

When women sued Brown University in Cohen v. Brown, they won reinstatement of eliminated teams. ¹⁸ In 2021, the First Circuit opened its revisited opinion with bitter truth: "This landmark Title IX case does not come to us as a stranger." ¹⁹ A generation passed. Universities still break the same law.

The inequity cuts deeper along race and class lines. Researcher Christopher Flowers found Black women "experience sex discrimination similar to White women and race discrimination similar to Black men." ²⁰ The Women's Sports Foundation admits federal data "underestimate the extent to which girl athletes do not have access." ²¹ Title IX primarily benefited white suburban athletes while leaving others behind.

Political Football

The Department of Education's 2024 rule clarified that discrimination "includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics." ²² Several states immediately banned transgender participation. The Supreme Court will decide whether those laws stand. ²³ Entire groups' rights now depend on nine justices instead of functioning federal enforcement.

The Knight Commission projects Division I athletics revenue will hit $20.9 billion by 2032. ²⁴ Title IX was never built to regulate an industry that worships television contracts. Every year the money grows and the inequality deepens.

What Actual Enforcement Looks Like

Real change requires more than celebrations and compliance forms:

Independent oversight. Create an Office of Gender Equity with power to audit, subpoena, and fine universities that falsify data. Voluntary compliance is designed failure.
Financial transparency. Require every NCAA member to publish complete gender-specific budgets including coaching salaries, facilities, recruiting, travel, and marketing. Hidden numbers protect discrimination.
Outcome metrics. Measure actual experience: access to trainers, nutrition, medical care, and media exposure. Count reality, not rosters.
Media requirements. Networks and conferences profiting from college sports must provide equal production quality and airtime. If they profit from women's labor, they must show it.
Annual audits. Every NCAA championship undergoes parity review. When facilities, travel, or coverage fall short, sanctions follow.

Finish the Fight

Title IX opened doors but left the power structure intact. Administrators learned to satisfy letters while violating spirit. Participation grew while control and funding stayed locked in male hands.

The women's basketball players proved that transparency still works when courage does the talking. They filmed inequality, made it viral, and forced change. But that should never be their burden. The law exists so they don't have to fight this battle every season.

We don't need another anniversary celebration. We need enforcement with teeth and budgets in daylight. Stop counting bodies. Start counting money. Make every dollar public, every budget transparent, every inequity visible. Darkness is where discrimination thrives.

Until then, every banner about Title IX is a lie. The scoreboard may look even, but the field remains tilted. Equality will stay a slogan until Title IX stops protecting paperwork and starts protecting justice.

Endnotes

1. McCluskey, Megan. “NCAA Accused by Women’s March Madness Players of Unequal Treatment.” Time, Time, 19 Mar. 2021, time.com/5948127/sedona-prince-womens-basketball-march-madness..

2. Jones, Zoe Christen. “NCAA Apologizes for Disparities between Women’s and Men’s Facilities.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 20 Mar. 2021, www.cbsnews.com/news/ncaa-tournament-womens-facilities-march-madness/.

3. Press, Associated. “Report Says NCAA Makes Progress on Gender Inequality with Men’s, Women’s Basketball Tourneys.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 20 July 2022, www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/34273158/report-says-ncaa-makes-progress-gender-inequality-mens-women-basketball-tourneys.

4. Reedy, Joe. “Women’s NCAA Title Game Outdraws the Men’s Championship with an Average of 18.9 Million Viewers.” AP News, AP News, 29 May 2024, apnews.com/article/march-madness-ratings-iowa-clark-b592435cc286c75a7ac9278c97326ad8.

5. “20 U.S. Code § 1681 - Sex.” Legal Information Institute, Legal Information Institute, www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1681. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.

6. “Clarification of Intercollegiate Athletics Policy Guidance: The Three-Part Test.” U.S. Department of Education, www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/higher-education-laws-and-policy/higher-education-policy/clarification-of-intercollegiate-athletics-policy-guidance-the-three-part-test. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.

7. U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. “Additional Clarification of Intercollegiate Athletics Policy.” U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 17 Mar. 2005, www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/200503017-additional-clarification-three-part-test.pdf.

8. “Education Should Improve Its Title IX Enforcement Efforts.” United States Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov/assets/gao-24-105994-highlights.pdf. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.

9. “Education Should Improve Its Title IX Enforcement Efforts.” United States Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov/assets/gao-24-105994-highlights.pdf. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.

10. “As Title IX Turns 50, Research Shows Girls Have yet to Receive Same Number of Athletic Opportunities as Boys Did in 1972.” Women’s Sports Foundation, www.womenssportsfoundation.org/press_release/as-title-ix-turns-50-research-shows-girls-have-yet-to-receive-same-number-of-athletic-opportunities-as-boys-did-in-1972/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.

11. “Home Page | College Athletics Database.” Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database, knightnewhousedata.org/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.

12. Division I Athletics Finances 10-Year Trends from 2013 to 2022 December 2023, ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/Finances/2023RES_DI-RevExpReport_FINAL.pdf. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.

13. Miller, Jenesse. “News Media Keeps Pressing the Mute Button on Women’s Sports Coverage.” USC Today, 19 Sept. 2023, today.usc.edu/womens-sports-tv-news-coverage-sportscenter-online-usc-study/.

14. Service, Purdue News. “Overlooking Her Shot: Women’s Sports Need an Assist as Coverage Remains the Same as 30 Years Ago.” Purdue University News, www.purdue.edu/newsroom/archive/releases/2021/Q1/overlooking-her-shot-womens-sports-need-an-assist-as-coverage-remains-the-same-as-30-years-ago.html. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.

15. “Brief on House v. NCAA Settlement (February 12, 2025).” Knight Commission, 12 Feb. 2025, www.knightcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/KnightCommissionBrief_HousevNCAA_182025.pdf.

16. “US Education Department Rescinds Biden Guidance on Student Athlete Compensation | Reuters.” Reuters, 12 Feb. 2025, www.reuters.com/world/us/us-education-department-rescinds-biden-guidance-student-athlete-compensation-2025-02-12/.

17. “The Proper Use and Abuse of Roster Management.” Sports Management Resources, sportsmanagementresources.com/library/proper-use-and-abuse-roster-management. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.

18. Cohen v. Brown University, 101 F.3d 155 (1996), 21 Nov. 1996, clearinghouse-umich-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/doc/87933.pdf.

19. “AMY COHEN ET AL.” US Courts, United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit, 27 Oct. 2021, media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/21-1032P-01A.pdf.

20. Flowers, Courtney, et al. “Examining the ability of title IX to provide equitable participation opportunities for Black Women College Athletes.” Journal of Intercollegiate Sport, vol. 16, no. 1, 22 Mar. 2023, pp. 6–24, https://doi.org/10.17161/jis.v16i1.19509.

21. “A Women’s Sports Foundation Research Report, May 2022 50 Years of Title IX:” Women’s Sports Foundation, www.womenssportsfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Title-IX-at-50-Report-FINALC-v2-.pdf. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.

22. “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance.” Federal Register, Office for Civil Rights, Department of Education, 29 Apr. 2024, www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/29/2024-07915/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-sex-in-education-programs-or-activities-receiving-federal.

23. “Supreme Court Will Hear Challenges to Bans on Athletic Participation by Transgender Students.” American Civil Liberties Union, 3 July 2025, www.aclu.org/press-releases/supreme-court-will-hear-challenges-to-bans-on-athletic-participation-by-transgender-students.

24. Rinebold, JoJo. “Financial Projections through 2032 for Division I FBS Programs.” Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, 6 Sept. 2023, www.knightcommission.org/2023/09/financial-projections-through-2032-for-division-i-fbs-programs/.