Title IX

Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. This is Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235 (June 23, 1972), codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688.

Impact on American schools

The introduction of Title IX was followed by a considerable increase in the number of female students participating in organized sports within American academic institutions followed by growing interest in initiating and developing programs which would pursue feminist principles in relationship to concerns surrounding issues dealing with girls and women's equality and equity in sport.

Institutional requirements

Athletic equality requirements were later set by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, first in 1979 and later followed by several clarifications and amendments. To meet the requirements, schools must pass at least one of three tests measuring sex equality among athletics the school offers. These tests consist of proportional numbers of males and females participating, whether or not the school is making an effort to increase the number of the unrepresented sex, if the school has a certain history of one specific sex dominating the numbers of athletes in a given sport, and whether or not the school is showing an effort to expand the program to the other sex.

Challenges

There have been different interpretations regarding Title IX's application to high school athletics. The American Sports Council sued the Department of Education in 2011 seeking a declaratory judgment that its policy interpreting Title IX's requirement for equity in participation opportunities is limited to colleges and universities. The American Sports Council argued that "The three-part test and its encouragement of quotas, has no relevance to high schools or high-school sports, and no federal regulation or interpretation has ever said that high schools must abide by the three-part test". On the other hand, the Department of Education insists that Title IX is a "valuable tool" for ensuring a level playing field for all students" and "plays a critical role in ensuring a fundamental level of fairness in America's schools and universities".

Coaching and administration

Although Title IX has helped increase the participation rate of female student athletes, several challenges remain for girls and women, including for females who aspire to become involved in professional roles within sport. The growing exposure of female sports has led to an increasingly dominant representation of males in coaching positions and roles involving the governance of female athletics.

In regards to coaching roles, in spite of the fact that the legislation has helped create more and better opportunities for women, the number of women coaches has surprisingly decreased while the number of male coaches have subsequently increased. Men have also gained a larger role in directing female athletics. For example, the male-dominated National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which had been content to let the female-dominated Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) run female championships, decided to offer female championships themselves, leading to the eventual demise of the AIAW. The NCAA later tried to claim that Congress had not intended to include athletics under Title IX's coverage, but the record lacks any sustained discussion of the matter.

Increasing participation

Advocates of Title IX's current interpretation cite increases in female athletic participation, and attribute those increases to Title IX. One study, completed in 2006, pointed to a large increase in the number of women participating in athletics at both the high school and college level. The number of women in high school sports had increased by a factor of nine, while the number of women in college sports had increased by more than 450%. A 2008 study of intercollegiate athletics showed that women's collegiate sports have grown to 9,101 teams, or 8.65 per school. The five most frequently offered college sports for women are in order: (1) Basketball, 98.8% of schools have a team; (2) Volleyball, 95.7%; (3) Soccer, 92.0%; (4) Cross Country; 90.8%, and (5) Softball; 89.2%. The lowest rank for female sports teams is bowling. The exact percentage is not known; however, there are only around 600 students on women's bowling teams in all three divisions in the NCAA.

Impact on men's programs

There have been concerns and claims that the current interpretation of Title IX by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has resulted in the dismantling of men's programs, despite strong participation in those sports. Some believe that the increase in athletic opportunity for girls in high school has come at the expense of boys' athletics. Because teams vary widely in size, it is more common to compare the number of total participation opportunities between the sexes. Additionally, the total number of college participation opportunities has increased for both sexes in the Title IX era, though solely for women when increased enrollment is accounted for, as men's participation has remained static relative to university enrollment, and men's opportunities outnumber women's by a wide margin.

Between 1981 and 1999, university athletic departments cut 171 men's collegiate wrestling teams, 84 men's tennis teams, 56 men's gymnastics teams, 27 men's track teams, and 25 men's swimming teams. While some teams—both men's and women's—have been eliminated in the Title IX era, both sexes have seen a net increase in the number of athletic teams over that same period. When total enrollment (which had likewise increased) is controlled for however, only women had an increase in participation.

Though interest in the sport of wrestling has consistently increased at the high school level since 1990, scores of colleges have dropped their wrestling programs during that same period. The OCR's three-prong test for compliance with Title IX often is cited as the reason for these cuts. Wrestling historically was the most frequently dropped sport, but other men's sports later overtook the lead. According to the NCAA, the most-dropped men's sports between 1987 and 2002 were as follows:

1. cross country (183)
2. indoor track (180)
3. golf (178)
4. tennis (171)
5. rowing (132)
6. outdoor track (126)
7. swimming (125)
8. wrestling (121)

Additionally, eight NCAA sports—all men's sports—were sponsored by fewer Division I schools in 2020 than in 1990, despite the D-I membership having increased by nearly 60 schools during that period.

A 2023 study found, however, that when men's sports were cut, the funding for those sports was primarily re-directed to the men's football and basketball programs. The study moreover suggests that it is in athletic directors' interest to not admit that the additional funding was for football and basketball, but to rather blame Title IX for the cuts.

In 2011, the American Sports Council (formerly called the College Sports Council) stated, "Nationwide, there are currently 1.3 million more boys participating in high school sports than girls. Using a gender quota to enforce Title IX in high school sports would put those young athletes at risk of losing their opportunity to play." High school participation rates from the National Federation of High School associations report that in 2010–11, there were 4,494,406 boys and 3,173,549 girls participating in high school athletics.

In a 2007 study of athletic opportunities at NCAA institutions the Women's Sports Foundation reported that over 150,000 female athletic opportunities would need to be added to reach participation levels proportional to the female undergraduate population. The same study found that men's athletics also receives the lion's share of athletic department budgets for operating expenses, recruiting, scholarships, and coaches salaries.

Transgender students

Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Education-issued guidance asserted that transgender students are protected from sex-based discrimination under Title IX. In particular, Title IX of its Education Amendments of 1972 bars schools that receive financial aid assistance from sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities. It instructed public schools to treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity in academic life. A student who identifies as a transgender boy, for instance, is allowed entry to a boys-only class, and a student who identifies as a transgender girl is allowed entry to a girls-only class. This also applies to academic records if that student is over the age of eighteen at a university. The memo states in part that "[a]ll students, including transgender students, or students who do not conform to sex stereotypes, are protected from sex-based discrimination under Title IX. Under Title IX, a recipient generally must treat transgender, or gender non-conforming, consistent with their gender identity in all aspects of the planning, implementation, enrollment, operation, and evaluation of single-sex classes."

However, starting in 2017 with the Trump administration, several of these policies have been rolled back. In February 2017, the Departments of Justice and Education (headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, respectively) withdrew the guidance on gender identity. The Education Department announced on February 12, 2018, that Title IX did not allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their gender identities.

Dwayne Bensing, a lawyer for the Office of Civil Rights within the United States Department of Education and who was in its LGBTQ affinity group, had unsuccessfully asked DeVos not to withdraw the Obama administration guidance. Two years later, in the summer of 2019, Bensing discovered that the Education Department was fast-tracking the Alliance Defending Freedom's complaint against transgender student-athletes, even though the department's attorneys did not understand the legal basis for doing so and the department had to pressure other employees. Bensing leaked this information to the Washington Blade and was forced to resign in December 2019.

In October 2018, The New York Times obtained a memo issued by the Department of Health and Human Services that would propose a strict definition of gender for Title IX, using the person's sex as determined at birth and could not be changed, effectively limiting recognition of transgender students and potentially others. The memo stated that the government needed to define gender "on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable". The news brought immediate protests in several locations as well as online social media under the "#WontBeErased" hashtag.

In May 2020, the Trump administration's Department of Education contended that the rights of cisgender women are infringed upon by transgender women. The Education Department started to withhold federal funding to schools which affirm the identities of transgender athletes.

In August 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a 2018 lower court ruling in Adams v. The School Board of St. Johns County, Florida that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is discrimination "on the basis of sex" and is prohibited under Title IX (federal civil rights law) and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

In December 2020, the "Protect Women in Sports" Act was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives. It would block schools from receiving federal funding if transgender girls and nonbinary people are allowed to compete on girls' sports teams at those schools. It was sponsored by Representatives Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat, and Markwayne Mullin, a Republican.

In 2021, the Biden administration took steps to reinstate some of the protections for transgender students that had been rescinded under the Trump administration. These included two executive orders—13988 in January 2021 and 14021 in March 2021—which were supported by the US Department of Education, though their ability to implement their guidance was limited in June 2022 within the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia.

On January 9, 2025, U.S. District court judge Danny C. Reeves of Kentucky struck down the Biden administration’s expanded protections, striking down the change nationwide.