The Heritage Foundation is Coming For Women's Sports

Fresh off a SCOTUS ruling against trans women in women's sports, the ultra conservative lobbying and policy group is ready to take on Title IX protections for cis women

It was never about fairness in women's sports, it was about worming sex discrimination into federal law. And you all fell for it.

A new report from the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative policy thinktank in the US, signaled a full frontal attack on the legal legitimacy of Title IX as a whole. The author was Scott Yenor, a man of despicable ideological pedigree, and his new paper argues that Title IX "has evolved from a seemingly modest anti-discrimination statute into a powerful engine of feminist social engineering, complete with proportionality mandates."

The piece launders transphobic talking points into an argument for taking "an approach that accommodates the partly natural, partly cultural differences between the sexes" to federal protections against sex discrimination, particularly in Title IX.

The piece begins with a transphobic lie and an error, incorrectly stating that in 2024, a "Tunisian man" defeated a Chinese woman for a gold medal in Olympic boxing. Except the gold medalist that year is neither a man nor is she Tunisian. She's from Algeria.

The international transphobic press ran wild with rumor and speculation of Imane Khelif's sex based on nothing but an alleged report by one of the most corrupt entities on the planet (Russian sports officials). Khalif was identified as female by a doctor at her birth, and raised as a woman. It wasn't until she started defeating white women at boxing that white sports officials began meddling in her private business.

Regardless, the fact that the paper starts with such a laughable factual error does not promote confidence in the rest of the report.

Yenor argues that Title IX should be reworked to remove the equality measures in place for the sports side of the law which requires schools pass a three pronged compliance test as described by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS):

An institution can demonstrate compliance by showing any one of three alternative criteria: 1) substantial proportionality, 2) a history and continuing practice of expanding sports participation opportunities for girls, or 3) full and effective accommodation of the athletics interests of the girls enrolled at the school.

Yenor points out correctly that only varsity level sports are considered for Title IX compliance purposes. He obfuscates why this is: these are the highest cost sports, and those that likely reward women with athletic scholarships. It's a way for athletic women to further their lives, educations, and future careers through athletic excellence.

Yenor argues that we should dispose of the varsity requirement and instead let schools count cheerleading, fitness and yoga classes, and intramural sports as part of their Title IX compliance.

Cheerleading, dance, yoga, hiking clubs, recreational intramurals, and other athletic opportunities more aligned with average female interests and tendencies would not count for Title IX compliance reviews or equity reports. Beauvoir’s aggressive, dominance-oriented female athlete became the mandatory model, and more natural and diverse expressions of female interest in sport were sidelined.

From here, Yenor argues that Title IX has resulted in the demotion of male varsity sports in order for schools to comply with the law. This is true and has long been an underlying problem in Olympic and non-football team sports on the men's side. Yenor blames feminists and Title IX itself while ignoring the real reason why men's sports have faced these cuts in the past:

Football.

In the top division of Division 1 football, schools are allowed to give out a maximum of 105 athletic scholarships for the football alone. It is only a men's sport and there is no equivalent women's football teams to provide equality. So across the rest of the department, there are going to be 105 fewer scholarships or equivalent funding for other men's sports compared with women's sports.

This is where the cuts come in. Men's soccer, swimming, gymnastics and many other sports have suffered under this tyranny of football.

At my own alma mater UMass, a nationally competitive men's water polo team that didn't even offer scholarships and just used athletes and coaches from the swim and diving teams got chopped as the school launched its campaign to eventually become the worst college football program in the entire country.

Of course all of this builds resentment amongst male athletes, but it is not the fault of Title IX or women athletes at all, but the fault lies completely with administrations chasing the football dream.

All of this is glossed over by Yenor who argued instead that Title IX should allow a broader classification of women's physical activities to be counted under Title IX to account for "natural and cultural difference between the sexes."

This would be a huge mistake for women athletes. I can easily envision Yenor's proposal being implemented and then sudden cuts to women's varsity sports come across the board.

"Sorry lady, you can't play varsity soccer anymore, but can I interest you in a yoga class?"

Let's remember also that none of these attacks on Title IX happen in a legal vacuum. What affects sports also effects the law more generally. We have seen this with the trans athlete cases, and we would see it again in Yenor's hypothetical world.

I can easily envisage cuts to funding for women's academic opportunities in lucrative fields like tech and science and instead going towards a bastardized home economics class based on the "natural and cultural differences" standards proposed by Heritage's stooges.

As for the football problem with Title IX, I'm not sure what the right solution should be. I've heard folks say there should be a football exception where football scholarships and spending are exempt from Title IX compliance, but I worry that this would lead to schools forcing other sports of both sex categories into poverty to compete in an even worse funding arms race than what we currently see playing out at the big football schools.

Regardless, we must oppose this Heritage proposal just as we must oppose all Heritage proposals. This is the organization that wrote and propagated Project 2026 and they want nothing more than to confine women to being barefoot and pregnant, making sandwiches in the kitchen for the rest of time.

Beware Heritage staffers bearing gifts.

Thank you so much for reading! It has been a busy summer over here at Burns Notice HQ. I am mostly done with my June/July travel schedule, though I do have a family vacation coming up again soon. I am hoping to return to doing multiple piece each week starting again now.

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