Title IX’s real champions are women athletes who refuse to back down.
The same political forces who spent decades gutting Title IX are now pretending to be its protectors.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump supporters staged a cross-country bus tour to “protect women’s sports” and “take back Title IX.” Shamelessly co-opting feminist language under the banner of “Our Bodies, Our Sports” and purporting to “Save Our Sports,” the campaign focused entirely on attacking trans women in sports.
Not one stop on the tour addressed the actual barriers women athletes face: fewer opportunities, unequal funding and facilities access and hundreds of unresolved discrimination complaints.
The tour traveled through more than 20 states and Washington, D.C.
None of this should surprise anyone familiar with the tour’s organizer, the conservative Independent Women’s Forum, an organization that has been in the faux-feminism business since its founding. The group formed in 1991 to support the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a recent ruling, it succeeded before that same Court, which ruled that states are allowed to impose blanket bans on trans women in school sports—a ruling that could lead to genital inspections of girls across the country—all in the name of “protecting” women and girls.
Republicans, the self-appointed guardians of women’s sports, have in fact spent years blocking efforts to expand women’s access to athletic opportunities.
- Since Trump took office, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces Title IX, has resolved only 11 cases involving discrimination in athletics—a significant drop from previous years. (There were 18 in 2024, and 42 in 2023.)
- Five of these cases involved banning transgender women from women’s sports.
- Only two of the 11 cases involved sex college athletics—both of which resulted in banning transgender women from women’s sports.
- Meanwhile, 199 cases are pending.
While the Trump administration performs protection and lets unresolved cases pile up, athletes and their lawyers are actually enforcing Title IX and expanding athletic opportunities for women and girls.
Just this month, they have achieved two Title IX victories in sports. Days apart, in response to letters describing Title IX violations, two universities on opposite coasts reversed decisions to cut women’s athletic opportunities.
- On July 6, California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, Calif., agreed to reinstate its women’s lacrosse team.
- Then on July 8, Christopher Newport University (CNU) in Newport News, Va., agreed to reinstate its coed sailing team and women’s sailing regattas—the first time Title IX has ever been used to preserve a coed team.
This is the real work of Title IX—not the smoke and mirrors of the Trump administration.
Christopher Newport University Preserves Sailing Opportunities for Women
The women on CNU’s sailing team had watched their opportunities steadily disappear.
On March 23, 2026, Christopher Newport University announced it was eliminating its varsity sailing team, which included both female and male athletes. The announcement came just months after the university ended opportunities for its female members to compete in separate women’s varsity sailing competitions.
“We were stunned that CNU eliminated the women’s sailing regattas and then our entire team when it was already depriving women of equal opportunities to participate in varsity sports,” said members of the women’s sailing team Corine Glickstein, Hannah-Louise Roethel and Shari-Ann Tremblay, who threatened to file a Title IX class-action lawsuit.
Under Title IX, universities cannot eliminate female varsity opportunities for which interest, ability and competition are available unless “intercollegiate level participation opportunities for male and female students are provided in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments.”
According to the athletes’ lawyers, CNU failed this test because women were 52.5 percent of the undergraduates but had only 35.33 percent of the athletic opportunities (236 out of 668)—a gap of more than 17 percent.
After the cuts, CNU would have needed to add approximately 241 opportunities for women to reach gender equity with men under Title IX.
Armed with those numbers, the athletes’ lawyers just needed one letter to bring CNU to the table. On May 22, 2026, the students’ attorneys, Arthur Bryant of Arthur Bryant Law, P.C., in Oakland, Calif., and Linda Correia of Correia & Puth, LLC, in Washington, D.C., wrote to CNU president William Kelly on behalf of the female sailing team members, informing him that the school’s actions violated Title IX.
In response, the university agreed to reinstate its coed sailing team and women’s sailing regattas, develop a gender equity plan and comply with Title IX. Three athletes and their two lawyers accomplished with one letter what Trump’s Office for Civil Rights, with 199 open cases, has not.
“This is a huge victory for CNU, its female athletes, all of the women and men on CNU’s sailing team and everyone who cares about gender equity and sailing in the CNU community and nationwide,” said Bryant. “Title IX is the law. Schools need to follow it. To its great credit, that’s what CNU is going to do.”
CNU has since hired an interim sailing head coach and will be announcing a nationwide search for a permanent full-time head coach today.
“These young athletes stood up for their civil rights and won not just for themselves, but for all female student athletes at CNU,” said Correia.
California Lutheran University Agrees to Continue Women’s Lacrosse
… The history of Title IX has shown: If women want equality, they need to fight for it.
Arthur Bryant, attorney
Across the country, another group of women athletes found their season in jeopardy when California Lutheran University (CLU) announced on April 28 that it was eliminating the women’s lacrosse team, despite already providing male athletes with more varsity athletic opportunities.
For the players, this decision was about more than losing a team: It was about fighting for the opportunities Title IX was designed to protect.
Shea Simpson, an incoming junior on the women’s lacrosse team, said:
“Two months ago, CLU announced it was eliminating our team. My teammates and I thought the decision violated Title IX, so we took action. We are proud that CLU has agreed to reinstate our team and make sure it is complying with Title IX. We are eager to get back on the field and keep building the team and program we love.”
Simpson was joined in the challenge by seven of her teammates: Christina Arellanes, Nicki-Jean Henderson, Tess Keenan, Marina Markrud, Alexa Miller, Susan Rosas and Daphne White. Like the CNU sailors, these athletes used Title IX to force their university to confront its obligations and fight to reclaim the opportunities that had been taken away from them.
“These women deserve our praise and our gratitude,” said Bryant, lead counsel for the women. “They understood and confirmed what the history of Title IX has shown: If women want equality, they need to fight for it. CLU will be better for all because they did.”
The athletes’ challenge was backed by a stark imbalance in athletic opportunities.
- According to the athletes’ lawyers, CLU failed Title IX’s participation requirements because women represented 54.63 percent of the undergraduate student body but received only 37.89 percent of the athletic opportunities (233 out of 615)—a gap of more than 16 percent.
- After eliminating the women’s lacrosse team, CLU would have needed to add approximately 164 opportunities for women to reach gender equity with men under Title IX without adding any other teams for women.
Under the agreement, CLU will immediately reinstate its women’s lacrosse team, hire a mutually agreed gender equity specialist to conduct a gender equity review and develop and implement a gender equity plan if necessary to ensure that CLU’s intercollegiate athletic program complies with Title IX no later than the 2028-’29 academic year.
While the Trump administration claims to be “protecting women’s sports,” the real defenders are the women athletes and their lawyers who are making Title IX’s promise of equal opportunity a reality by advancing women’s opportunities in sports and fighting to achieve the gender equity Title IX was designed to guarantee.
*
A note from Ms. editors: We want to hear from you for The Majority, a new campaign collecting stories about how reproductive freedom has enabled readers to build the lives they want and need. Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. Add your voice and complete the sentence: “Access to reproductive choices gave me the freedom to….” Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible.
