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They’re coming for Title IX.
Don’t make the mistake of dismissing the policy paper that appeared on The Heritage Foundation’s website two weeks ago as the harmless nattering of a crusty old policy wonk. This is the group that authored Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for reshaping this country that has already led to mass deportations, the dismantling of the Department of Education and the end of anything remotely related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Now they’re eyeing Title IX, the law that, according to the paper’s author, was “designed to produce a new sort of woman — one that is more aggressive, more competitive, more male, less relational, and less oriented toward the goods of family and motherhood.”
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Our bodies, our self-confidence, our independence — they’re not going to stop until women have the same rights and opportunities they did before the 1970s. Which were almost none.
“This one is personal,” said Lori Trahan, a Democratic congresswoman from Massachusetts who went to Georgetown on a volleyball scholarship. “We have to expose people out there trying to undermine Title IX’s core tenets, and (show) why we have to beat that back at every possible turn.”
Title IX prohibited sex-discrimination in education
Title IX began with a very simple premise: Prohibiting sex-based discrimination by any education program or activity that receives federal funding. Which covers pretty much everything related to education.
It initially opened doors in academia. But Birch Bayh, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, saw to it that Title IX applied to athletics, too. Suddenly, the gates to playing fields, pools and gymnasiums swung open for girls and young women.
It wasn’t only participation numbers that reflected the impact of Title IX, soaring from 294,000 girls playing high school sports in 1971-72 to more than 3.5 million in 2024-25, the most recent survey. It was how we saw ourselves. Playing sports taught girls and young women teamwork, dedication, self-discipline, focus, leadership and assertiveness, and those lessons carried far beyond the playing fields.
Multiple studies have shown girls who play sports do better in school and are more likely to graduate. They’re less likely to become sexually active as teenagers and are more likely to avoid drugs. They’re likely to be healthier.
A 2023 survey by Deloitte found 91% of women in professional leadership roles said playing sports was important to their corporate success.
“Without Title IX, I don’t go to Georgetown. I don’t play volleyball in college. It’s the story of so many women athletes,” Trahan said. “Title IX is one of the most successful civil rights laws in American history.
“Is it perfect? No, of course not,” Trahan added. “It never was perfect. Enforcement is uneven, schools still get away with unequal facilities, unequal funding, unequal coaching. But it is a program that has transformed the lives of women across our country.
“The motivation has never been greater to continue to not only uphold Title IX the way it stands today and to commit to continue its improvement.”
Heritage Foundation suggests ways to weaken Title IX
To the Heritage Foundation, however, Title IX is a feminist plot that needs to be reined in.
Women aren’t naturally competitive, according to the report, and by encouraging them to play sports, it’s made them “less deferential, less graceful, and less oriented toward motherhood and traditional feminine graces.” In other words, we now aspire to lives beyond being brood mares who are wholly dependent on men.
How radical of us.
According to the Heritage Foundation, women would rather do yoga and other activities that “emphasize rhythm, coordination, community and graceful exertion,” and Title IX should be retooled to reflect that. Rather than requiring women get the same opportunities and funding as men, just give them a yoga mat and put that money to better use. Like men’s sports!
The report also claims combat sports are “almost exclusively male everywhere.” Which is going to be news to the more than 75,000 girls and young women who are wrestling in high school and college, making it one of the fastest-growing sports at both levels.
“This idea that competitive sports are somehow male and what women really want is gentler and softer, that’s the exact stereotype Title IX was written to end,” Trahan said. “It’s 1971 thinking in a different font.”
It’s easy to say the Heritage Foundation’s efforts will go nowhere. That too many people, women and men alike, recognize the value Title IX has had, and believe women being full and equal participants in our society is a good thing.
But Project 2025 has done too much damage already not to take the threat to Title IX seriously. The Heritage Foundation wants a United States that reflects their White, Judeo-Christian and heteronormative “values,” and is steadfastly working to eliminate anything that deviates from them.
It’s also about enforcing a specific definition of femininity. It started with banning transgender women from sports. Now that that’s been accomplished, the Heritage Foundation and their ilk are going to try and make the rest of us women conform.
“They wrote Project 2025, and a whole lot of that document turned into policy. You publish the paper and you seed the argument. That’s what worries me,” Trahan said.
“When these guys tell you what they’re going to do, you should believe them.”
This country has learned the hard way that women can be stripped of what we'd assumed were fundamental rights. Don't let Title IX be the next to go.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The authors of Project 2025 are coming for Title IX | Opinion
