Good Initiative, Bad Judgement: The Unintended Consequences of Title IX’s Proportionality Standard on NCAA Men’s Gymnastics and the Transgender Athlete

Title IX fails to provide the tools or guidelines necessary to equalize opportunities for all student athletes in the collegiate setting despite the government’s continuous effort to explain the law. This failure is because judicial precedent has largely developed around the binary proportionality test of compliance. Title IX was originally intended to equalize educational opportunities for male and female students in order to remedy past discrimination in our society. However, the application of Title IX has frequently created fewer opportunities in athletics due to the unintended relationship between the proportionality standard and the social phenomenon that is the commercialization of college sports. This comment will highlight recent historical challenges with Title IX's application in college athletics with a focus on men’s gymnastics. This comment proposes that the Office for Civil Rights revoke their policy letter outlining the binary proportionality test, so that universities will be incentivized to use more qualitative measures of compliance. Finally, this comment will highlight developing legal issues with the application of the binary proportionality test on transgender athletes.