A conservative political coalition that united behind the banner of protecting women’s sports is showing deep internal divisions as prominent right-leaning organizations begin pushing to dismantle bedrock anti-discrimination policies. At least two conservative groups are pressing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to rescind a longstanding federal interpretation of Title IX that has governed high school and college athletics since 1979.
The push centers on the proportionality test, one of three compliance standards established under Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination in education. The standard dictates that athletic participation rates should roughly mirror a school’s male-to-female undergraduate enrollment ratio. Proponents credit the policy with fueling an immense expansion in female athletics over the past four decades, growing high school girls’ sports participation from fewer than 300,000 athletes to approximately 3.5 million. Data from the NCAA shows more than 242,300 female athletes competed across divisions during the 2024-25 school year, marking a record high.
However, two influential conservative organizations—The Heritage Foundation and the Pacific Legal Foundation—have launched direct challenges against the regulatory framework. A recent paper published by Heritage labeled the decades-old sports policy a “failed experiment” rooted in the assumption that women share equal interest in competitive sports with men. The report argues the policy has evolved into a tool of feminist social engineering that unfairly penalizes male athletics, leading colleges to trim nonrevenue men’s sports like wrestling, gymnastics, and golf.
Jonathan Butcher, acting director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, argued that college athletics has devolved into a quota system unresponsive to actual student interest levels. The report was authored by Scott Yenor, chair of the organization’s American Citizenship Initiative, who contended that competitive drives are more central to male identity. The Pacific Legal Foundation, which filed a formal petition asking the Education Department to rescind the guidance, argued that the proportionality test has outlived its purpose.
Caleb Trotter, senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, asserted that eliminating the measure would not trigger a return to widespread gender disparities because societal standards have shifted. The organization is also representing student-athletes challenging California Baptist University’s decision to drop men’s golf, swimming, diving, and wrestling, a legal battle attorneys hope will reach the Supreme Court. It marks the first time in nearly two decades that the group has petitioned the federal government on the issue, following a similar denial issued under President George W. Bush’s administration.
The emerging campaign has triggered sharp pushback from conservative women leaders who spent years building cross-partisan alliances to bar transgender athletes from female sports leagues. Prominent advocates argue that seeking to upend Title IX’s foundational equity rules threatens to alienate the broad coalition that successfully rallied red-state voters and President Donald Trump.
Beth Parlato, senior legal counsel at the Independent Women’s Law Center, rejected the notion that women lack equal competitive drive, calling the premise offensive and regressive. Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president for Defending Education and a former civil rights attorney in the first Trump administration’s Education Department, warned that targeting foundational Title IX guidelines damages the credibility of conservative advocates who worked to build bridges with mainstream women’s liberation movements.
Legal experts and veteran sports administrators also defended the existing framework, noting that persistent gaps remain in athletic opportunities nationwide. Arthur Bryant, a longtime Title IX litigator, pointed out that female athletes continue to face vast disparities compared to their male counterparts across collegiate programs. A Government Accountability Office report from 2024 found that 40 percent of colleges maintained significant gaps between women’s enrollment rates and athletic participation figures, offering no more women’s varsity slots in the 2021-22 academic year than they had a decade prior.
Donna Lopiano, appointed as the University of Texas’s first director of women’s athletics in 1975, argued that financial concentration in college football and a select few revenue-generating men’s sports are the primary culprits behind cuts to smaller men’s programs. She emphasized that federal law grants universities broad flexibility to allocate internal resources as long as overall participation opportunities remain equitable between the sexes.
The Education Department has not issued a formal decision or indicated when it might respond to the petitions, though the agency is widely expected to undertake broader rulemaking on Title IX to align definitions of sex with biological birth in response to ongoing transgender athletics disputes. Meanwhile, conservative women’s organizations plan to press state lawmakers for additional restrictions when legislative sessions resume.
