Restoring Title IX’s promise of equal opportunity
Petition to repeal 1979 Policy Interpretation of Title IX
March 17, 2026
Active: Petition to repeal aims to protect the promise of equal opportunity
Title IX was passed in 1972 with the promise of ensuring that no one is denied educational opportunity because of their sex. In the decades since, it has transformed women’s athletics, expanded scholarship access, and opened doors for millions of students across the country.
But the Department of Education’s 1979 “Policy Interpretation” of Title IX has undermined that promise. The Interpretation allows schools to demonstrate compliance with Title IX in athletics by, among other options, showing that athletic participation is “substantially proportionate” to the student body’s male-female enrollment ratio. In practice, this proportionality requirement functions as a sex-based quota. Rather than investing in new women’s programs, many schools have found it easier—and cheaper—to cut men’s teams or cap roster sizes to hit the numbers.
The consequences have been severe. Since the early 1980s, the number of NCAA men’s gymnastics teams has fallen from over 100 to just 12. NCAA Division I men’s wrestling programs have dropped from 150 to 79. Schools facing pressure to meet proportionality targets have eliminated smaller men’s sports like swimming, tennis, and track, rather than invest in new women’s programs.
But singling out members of one sex and limiting their opportunities does nothing to remedy discrimination against members of the opposite sex. This approach gets Title IX backward. The landscape has changed dramatically since 1972. Women’s participation in high school and college athletics grew from roughly 300,000 in 1972 to over 3 million 40 years later. In the 2019-20 school year, women represented 44% of college athletes in the U.S. That progress is worth celebrating—and it does not depend on sex-based quotas to sustain itself.
Pacific Legal Foundation, alongside the American Sports Council, has filed a petition to repeal the 1979 Policy Interpretation. The Interpretation has distorted Title IX beyond its text and intent, replacing the pursuit of equal opportunity with an arbitrary numbers-driven compliance game that eliminates opportunities in the name of equity. Repealing it would not weaken Title IX; it would restore the original principle it was built on: that every student deserves an equal opportunity, regardless of sex.
Pacific Legal: https://pacificlegal.org/case/title-ix-rulemaking-petition-policy-interpretation/
PLF Petition: https://americansportscouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Petition-for-Rulemaking-Title-IX_2026.03.17-.pdf