Title IX Discrimination and Women's Sports

0:00It's the Brian Lair Show on WNIC. Good morning again everyone. So let's look at the bigger picture of what it means to protect women sports. At a time when protecting women sports has become a conservative talking point. Many Republican politicians have made that a signature issue as you know and it's the stated goal behind the Trump administration's executive order, barring transgender women and girls from school athletics. But a new piece in sleep reports that the same administration has cut the staff at the Department of Education that would investigate other violations of Title IX. That's the law that bars sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding including in sports. That of course is what many anti-trans athletes in women sports politicians hang their arguments on that it's sex discrimination

1:00against women in college under Title IX. But what about all the other ways Title IX is supposed to be an anti-discrimination law when Trump and company are dismantling anti-discrimination policies one after another as being anti-dei. The slate piece is called the dismantling of Title IX and it tells that story through two college beach volleyball players in Texas for the most part but also with some bigger thoughts. Joining us now to discuss our reporting is Maggie Mertens. The journalist who wrote that piece. She's also the author of Better Faster, Farther, How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women and Host of the Forecast, Seattle's Weekly Women's Sports Show on KVRU out there. Maggie, welcome to WNYC. Hello. Thanks for having me. So you tell the story through two beach volleyball players at Steven F. Austin State University in East Texas. They are Ryan, Allison and Bryn Dowd briefly and we'll get to the

2:08bigger issues that they represent. Who are they and what happened to them in their team? Yeah. So Ryan, Allison and Bryn Dowd are currently seniors in college at Steven F. Austin University and they are both former members of the beach volleyball team there and what happened in 2025 at the end of their beach volleyball season. The university announced quite suddenly that they were cutting the entire beach volleyball team along with the women's bowling team and the women's and men's golf teams and what happened was they filed a title-9 suit. Several of them, there are about nine of them who got together. Who did not transfer schools. Most of them left to transfer schools so they can continue playing because their school seemingly didn't want them there anymore and they ended up having a season last year and it was very interesting season. I started looking into

3:08this basically when that happened. They hired a new coach. They were told by the courts they needed to reinstate these teams while the case went through and what happened was by the end of this season, Ryan who was the the only person on the case on the beach volleyball team who would not graduate by the end of this season was told by the coach, this new coach that she would not be coming back the next year. So she was essentially cut from the team and she and her roommate who was also cut from the team have filed now a retaliation case saying that they were cut because of their activities organizing this title-9 case. Right. So there are various controversies there and legal questions there but I think as it relates to title-9 most directly some of the athletes at the school filed a title-9 suit and a preliminary injunction reinstated the team and here's the

4:11relevant stat that raises the question of where they violating the law or report the University Commission found women were 63 percent of undergrads but only held 40 percent of sports team roster spots so that violates title-9 and in and of itself. Absolutely. And this is not uncommon, you know very much most universities are somewhere out of compliance with title-9 on that front. Now the way that if something gets brought up like this such as a suit the way that they can prove that you know okay we we don't need to be punished for this they can say we're we're working towards compliance right but working towards compliance does not mean cutting women sports teams so that's where they're kind of in hot water here. Oh right no kidding. A lot of listeners may hear that stat and that it generally applies or stats in those directions apply to so many schools and

5:14think well guys are just more interested in playing sports. What would you or a title-9 advocate say to that? Well that's what the Heritage Foundation wants you to think for sure. In their most recent report about title-9 being a waste is is this argument that you know maybe this is just stasis right? Maybe we've given women all of these opportunities to do sports and this is just kind of this is the percentage of women who want to play at the college level and to that I say and many other you know title-9 advocates would say well where is the where is the equity in terms of offerings right? If you're only offering x number of teams and they're 40% of the slots that you have for your men's teams then how are women going to be making up more of that at any point right? The opportunity really needs to be there and overall you know you often get this really um lot cited enrollment numbers because of things like college football right college football is

6:18very big and division one schools um they need very large teams to play college football and so you're it's hard to kind of make that up unless you're offering a lot more women sports teams which you know there's always this argument well maybe it won't be worth it the money won't be etc so it's sort of a chicken and egg question the snows you're welcome in once again on this segment women who play or play college sports has your team ever been caught or threatened with cuts what did you do about it coaches and parents what happens to women's programs at your school when budgets get tight did anyone file a title nine complaint and what came of it or how do you see things changing if there's anybody listening who's involved with any of this right now um under the Trump administration's very selective enforcement of title nine having only to do with trans women in sports 212433 wnyc call or text with your question comment or story 2124339692 I'm just going

7:22to read what I consider really the the heart of your article so our listeners here exactly how you wrote it and then I'll ask you to expand or expound your choice on that it says well the Trump administration has talked a big game about protecting women's sports by writing executive orders that bar transgender women and girls from participating in school athletics they also severely stunted at least one avenue for title nine enforcement when they gutted the department of education's office for civil rights which is the entity responsible for investigating violations and and here's the payoff the administration directed said department to prioritize title nine investigations regarding transgender athletes of which there are few over those looking into unequal treatment of women athletes compared with men of which there are many um so why don't you pick it up from from there and maybe talk about what's being cut in terms of you know the usual

8:27form of title nine enforcement yeah so that's a really interesting interesting part of all of this is title nine is a super complicated law right because it's written so broadly it has many many different arms many different ways to you know be in compliance with many different enforcement mechanisms and one of the big ones is yes the Department of Education's office of civil rights those are the folks who typically you know if there was a complaint from a student if there was a complaint from a school that you know our team is not being treated equally our treat our team doesn't have you know the trainers that they need our team is being given you know poor practice facilities um those are the people that would typically from the federal level look into those look into those do a broad investigation and and then tell the school okay well you need to get into compliance this is how you're going to do it here's a plan xyz um and here's how to follow it otherwise you'll lose your federal funding and to you no one wants to lose federal funding of

9:30course so this is a way that like we can keep title nine going um but it requires people it requires you know this staff and you know this was one of the huge um cuts that happened during the big doge layoffs um was you know they decimated these offices i believe they were reduced by at least 50% throughout the country um and as i've been looking into this over the last couple of years you know yes even those investigations that were already ongoing um you know people were stopped hearing from from the investigators um now this is you know at steven a fast in they are going a different route they're using the judicial system um and but they're again we kind of run into this okay there is a different administration in in town um this is texas as well this is a very conservative court system this is a trump of point to judge um and so we do have folks who are saying well perhaps title nine is not worth enforcing in this way right um and so you're you're

10:36in a really sticky situation all over the place when it comes to you know the the different ways that this administration and this political climate um frankly has you know started to use the term protecting women's sports um when you know if you talk to any college athlete they will tell there are issues at every school in terms of you know title nine being not in compliance things that they could use you know marketing budgets they could have better game times better training better facilities all of those things um are true and yet uh the avenues for you know trying to get those schools into compliance are really really shrinking under this administration you mentioned the heritage foundation briefly before and in your article the line after the ones are just read um says if the recent report by the heritage foundation which calls title nine a failed

11:38experiment is an indication of where the trump administration and the GOP are headed next title nine could very well be on the chopping block all together so why did the heritage foundation which of course gave us project 2025 called title nine a failed experiment is this just in the larger portfolio of things that they consider DEI that they think are special rights for you know allegedly persecuted marginalized groups or what is that from their perspective um i think it falls in line with that for sure um it is an extremely um disturbing report for anyone who cares about gender equity um or inclusion especially in terms of women sports and and athletes it's essentially the argument there is that um you know giving women and girls these opportunities to play sports has been unnatural and has led to a natural uh women basically out

12:42in the world and this is why we have so many issues with um uh gender roles right now you know women not saying home not having children um it's basically as bad as you think like it's very very similar to the arguments that were being made against women being allowed to do sports you know at the beginning of the 20th century it's it's very regressive um but also very in line with you know some of those things that have come out of 2025 and these executive orders from the trump administration you know saying there are only two sexes and this isn't mutable and this is you know what a woman is and this is what a man is and um you know it's it's it's very disturbing and i know that you know for some people women sports might not be top of mind um but i do think it's a very important political issue when we're talking about you know culture and progress um on in terms of gender equity on the culture that surrounds that way of thinking um listener writes did you catch how many times

13:44yesterday senator mike smith mocked special prosecutor jack smith for attending a w n b a game and the listener is protect women sports and d now i did not see that part of the hearing i was you know focused on the parts where they were grilling smith about prosecuting trump uh regarding January 6th but yes is that a real thing were you aware of it yes well yes exactly and you know this is not um this is not abnormal right for for this administration for the people on the right who are who are talking about this you know protect women sports from from one side of their mouth on the other side they are often you know mocking it right or or saying racist things or you know homophobic things out of the other side of their mouths right um and so it's a very interesting time that we're in where women sports you know on the professional level have have made huge strides you know in recent years i started covering this 12 years ago and it was a completely different world um and so there's been a ton of cultural progress in in one way but of

14:49course you know backlash is is intense whenever there is progress like that and i will say you know it was not that long ago that you know there it was very mainstream to be making jokes about w a players about you know people who watched women sports being pathetic or you know it was very lame or why would we ever watch this these kinds of things when you know we have men sports that we can watch that are much higher quality and better um i do think a lot of that has gotten has gotten better but you know that's clearly not out of the system um and when you have you know huge foundations like the heritage foundation going on about how oh actually women sports is going to turn these women into you know big scary people um and that's what we got to get the genie back in the bottle you know we are talking about something that's actually very important here's um an interesting thing that a listener raises in a text on which sports women tend to play

15:54in college uh you talked before about well your article is you know built around these volleyball players from the school in Texas i don't even know if there are men's college volleyball teams at all um but you talked about one of the reasons that it's hard to get parity in terms of the total number of women playing sports at a particular university versus men is the prevalence of football teams uh which generally is only men's football teams and that they take a lot of players on the roster so listener writes one reason why women's rugby was making some headway with colleges and the NCAA in recent years was that their large rosters helped colleges match large football rosters for purposes of title nine requirements so tell me if you think that's an accurate statement and why do you think the sports do kind of separate the way they do there's a lot of women in lacrosse there's a lot of women in volleyball this is about rugby um i don't know of any women's

16:57college football teams why does it separate like that well that's a great question Brian I mean it's this is very much uh at the heart of a lot of the reporting that I do which is that sports are our culture right sports are our reflection of our culture and you know at the at the beginning we had a lot of sports being a reason for men to show their masculinity and to show how strong they um and this was a big reason for women you know kind of being kept out altogether of course since the beginning women have said oh actually this sounds fun I would like to do that um now what they have been you know allowed or given the option of doing has been limited right um and so you have things like there there are men's um college volleyball teams in fact there are men's uh beach volleyball teams in fact um but you're right that it's generally seen as more of a women's sport um and the women's side of things gets more attention and gets more funding so that's an interesting other

17:58side of the coin too right in that you know just because a man is doing it does not mean that it's going to automatically you know make a school more money uh but that might still you know show up in some of this inequity that we see in college sports um but it's very true you know there's been huge growth in certain women's sports volleyball is one of them volleyball is the most popular sport for women um overall right now uh for girls uh in the United States and volleyball is huge and beach volleyball in particular which is its own sport um it is separate um it takes just two people on the court as opposed to you know the six of indoor volleyball um and they play kind of like an around Robin style there's five different teams that play at once um that's actually you know from some of the folks that I talked to a really great way to kind of get more entitled nine compliance because it's a pretty easy sport to field right you don't need a lot of um you don't need a lot

19:01of equipment or that kind of thing um it's not too expensive and you can have most of the youth players don't get full scholarships um as opposed to places like you know sports like women's basketball men's football men's basketball who are largely you know on these full scholarships so um volleyball is a huge one women's wrestling has actually become an NCAA sport and has gotten really big um and that again this is a really good one for schools to get on um when you're trying to you know fill those fill those spots and really um get into compliance uh of course this is also a financial question for universities right um and so the financial landscape has also changed in recent years for college sports and because of that you're kind of getting these excuses for cutting teams that are you know maybe seen as less important or impressive or marketable um but are these kinds of like you know Olympic sports is what they call the ones like beach volleyball

20:04like a question and like swimming um who you know we see every four years but you're not necessarily going to sell a big TV package deal to watch them all year round or every all through every year not Olympic years by the way of correction and clarification on what senator smith actually accused jack smith of in that uh congressional hearing yesterday and what the truth was about that whole thing as the guardian reports smith who called smith a dirt bag claimed the prosecutor went to Atlanta to attend a hawks game on february third 2024 an insinuated smith may have met with funny willis the former fulton county district attorney who brought state charges against but smith denied ever attending an Atlanta hawks game he later clarified that he attended a university of Iowa hawk eyes game in Maryland to watch Caitlin Clark play so it wasn't even wasn't a WNBA game as the listener wrote it was a college basketball game making it even more relevant to your

21:08article uh but the senator didn't know his hawks from his hawk eyes yes well and I think you know some of the things that i've seen around around that that situation which yes is almost comical and also scary um is you know that's just how far out of mind something like college basketball is women's college basketball is to this this republicans senator right and so it is he looked up you know what basketball game was happening at this time and didn't see any of course men's teams came up and assumed it must be the hawks right um and so instead of looking at the broader the broader picture which of course yes includes college basketball and perhaps you know the most notable college basketball player in recent years um did not even cross uh cross the consciousness of of the senator which you know yes speaks volumes i think to the amount of attention that is being

22:09paid right to college women sports um the irony or an irony in the conclusions that you make in the article um seem to be well i'm going to read another line from the article um with respect to trump and other republicans being so focused on title nine as the means by which they're going to get trans athletes out of women's collegiate sports it says it's almost as though by pushing so hard on the conservative pet project of borrowing transgender athletes from women's sports conservative politicians have reaffirmed that the three prong test meaning title nine is settled law meaning what that they were trying to challenge it at the supreme court like even the existence of title nine but now they're not well yes so this is where we get into the legal weeds a bit but one of the the very first thing that steven at fostering university did when it um replied to this uh title nine

23:11lawsuit against them was to say essentially this is not settled law anymore because of a particular supreme court case called loper bright which is another whole thing um but that many uh many legal people were saying this might mean that the three prong test which is not actually part of the written law of title nine but is the way that it's been administrative perhaps that means that this three prong test is thrown out kind of like it won't be applied anymore and so this was the first tactic that this university used was to say oh actually we don't even think that these you know these guidelines for title nine are settled law anymore um so they were really banking on the fact that oh well we can just cut these women sports teams we know we're already out of compliance but we don't think that this is um this is a problem because this other supreme court case has said no well the interesting and weird kind of legal thing that happened more recently which was the um

24:18little versus hecox case which is you know i based in Idaho about the Idaho was the first state to pass a law banning transgender girls and women from playing sports for their schools um and they were sued in a title nine case and the supreme court you know sided with uh with the government they said they could have this law that that bans trans girls but they also did say in their in um in that finding that uh the three prong test was part of title nine so there's kind they're kind of in this weird place where judicial precedent is is very much shifting um you know there was this time where everyone thought okay well the three prong test must be out um and now the supreme court has more recently said well no it's it is part of this but we're using that to also say trans girls are not covered under title nine so it's a very interesting place to be um and to be looking at in

25:23terms of you know from a legal standpoint title nine has been very very confusing um and sticky in this in this regard of you know how far do we go in quote unquote protecting women's sports you know and are we protecting you know transgender athletes as well so it's a very difficult situation legally you know as we as we wrap up Maggie um this is a second show in a row where we've talked about title nine yesterday's was on the the you know the gang rape allegations at Cornell um which also comes under the jurisdiction of of title nine so broad right that it could yes involve rape and it can involve beach volleyball you know kind of under the same thing and we're going to follow up on yesterday segment with a call in for listeners in in just a second as soon as I say goodbye to you is there anything I mean you're a sports journalist so I don't want to put you you know out of your beat but is there anything that you've been thinking with

26:28respect to Cornell and the news about all of this coming under title nine or if there's any relationship in any kind of way yeah I mean of course I have I you know gender equity is really the lens that I do a lot of my reporting through and of course these cases are are part of that and and it's it's it's hard right um all of it is hard what I've been thinking about especially with this whole you know the refrain of and how this this idea of protecting women and protecting women sports and how those words have been kind of twisted to mean something right to mean one thing and I was thinking about that in relation to the Cornell case and you know did it feel as though what happened there was protecting women or did it feel like what we're really doing is protecting men um and so I think that that's where my brain has been going lately is you know what is the point

27:34of title nine you know it kind of implies this women are the ones who need protecting um but in the end you know what it has really done is enshrined a system that is you know still very much protecting men protecting you know college football programs while they make billions of dollars and you know these and men who you know we don't want to ruin their futures by expelling them all um you know and it's it gets very it gets very muddy and very messy and um and I do think title nine is complicated um and deserves you know maybe more attention as opposed to sort of stripping it down and stripping it away as this administration kind of continues to do Maggie Merton's journalist author of Better Fast or Farther how running changed everything we know about women and host of the forecast Seattle's weekly women's sports show on KVRU her piece in slate is called the dismantling of title nine thank you so much for sharing it with us

28:34thanks for having me