Women’s Sports Foundation Celebrates While Students Still Get Cut from Teams Due to Title IX

Last Friday, the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) issued a press release, “WSF Responds to American Sports Council v. Department of Education decision.” Except the response, like that of the NWLC, did not legitimately address any of ASC’s reasons for suing the Department of Education.

One of the many deceiving claims is that our lawsuit “was designed to weaken Title IX.” To the contrary, we sued to prove that the very regulations WSF promotes — the three-prong test and gender quotas —are not meant for high schools and deny boys and girls their constitutional rights to equal freedom and equal protection. Unfortunately, we were denied standing to even argue the merits of our case. Unlike the WSF, we advocate for policies based on gauging student interest to direct the continuation and creation of programs. After all, it should be the students, not outside activist organizations, who guide administrators’ decisions to ensure equal opportunities.

The press release even says that the three-part test is “very-flexible” and “gives schools three lenient ways to comply with participation under Title IX.” This is so demonstrably and laughably false, and the WSF, NWLC and the rest of the gang know it. The OCR’s regulations clearly show that the three-prong test is only meant for “intercollegiate athletes.” Yet these groups continually put pressure on secondary schools to use this test. Not to mention that of course schools will only opt for the proportionality application; it’s the easiest way to work around the threat of lawsuits from activists.

Bottom line? Gender quota supporters are kidding themselves if they think that creating strict ratios is accomplishing anything but an expansion of a discriminatory, sex-based Title IX enforcement regime. The Women’s Sports Foundation has made clear that it is going to “begin celebrating the 40th anniversary of Title IX a few months early.” That means that the tough work — fighting for meaningful reforms on behalf of those students who have, are, and will face team cuts — is up to the American Sports Council. We’re up for the challenge.

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