The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s ( GAO ) released a report that revealed the notoriously unenforced and systematic violations of federal gender-equity laws governing college athletics on Thursday.
According to the GAO report, which is unassuming and has the title “Education Should Improve its Title IX Enforcement Efforts,” 93 % of universities had female athletic participation rates that were below their enrollment rates, while 63 % of schools had participation-enrollment gaps of 10 % or more during the academic year 2021-22. Nevertheless, collegiate women’s participation rates were 14 % lower than their membership rates. Title IX forbids sexual discrimination against students who receive “federal economic help.” To date, no university has ever had their money pulled on account of being Title IX improper, nor been sued by the federal government.

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which is the provincial sub- agency in charge of ensuring Title IX compliance, was criticized in the statement, claiming that its checking processes are slow and that it only make use of available Title IX data. Based on a review of OCR event management information from 2008 to 2022, GAO reached that conclusion. OCR dragged its feet to provide suggestions even when formal agreements were reached to increase Title IX conformity were being made. For instance, in 10 of 26 cases GAO reviewed, the Office of Civil Rights took more than a year to evaluate and review a school’s ideas to get into compliance, in five cases, OCR went silent for over five years.
According to Arthur Bryant, an counsel for the company Bailey Glasser, who has represented both male and female runners in gender equity claims against universities like San Diego State, Clemson, and Oregon,” this statement confirms the terrible, terrible truth.” The majority of schools in America are violating Title IX and denying people equitable access to professional sports. The federal government does n’t enforce the law and demand that it be followed. But this illegal sexual discrimination is continuing. If girls and women want it to quit, they have to be willing to stand up, struggle, and reimburse”.
The GOA report was released last quarter, 50 years after Title IX was passed, and at a time when the government has never been more interested in and appreciative of women’s college athletics. The children’s Division I NCAA basketball final surpassed the men’s tournament for the first time thanks to the sensation of previous Iowa basketball celebrity Caitlin Clark. Nebraska tennis broke the record for women’s tennis last August when over 92, 000 people poured into Memorial Stadium in Lincoln to see the Huskers ‘ home team defeat state foe Omaha.
Despite these encouraging data points, the GOA report emphasizes the deeper and more pressing issue that women face when applying for similar treatment in college sport departments.

According to the GAO, late- small colleges with between 1, 000 and 4, 000 students were” significantly more good” to have a larger space in female sporty- enrollment rates. When it came to gender equality in athletics, schools that sponsored football performed slightly worse than those that did n’t. However, women who were members of smaller NCAA Division I schools were less likely to include a lower sport participation rate overall.