Education Department demands NCAA erase records of male competitors in women’s sports
The Department of Education (DOE) is demanding that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) erase records of men who competed against female athletes, which would mean stripping those male players of their wins and awarding victories to women who lost to men.
The NCAA is the athletic authority for 1,100 higher education institutions across the country and over half a million athletes. After years of allowing men to compete against women, the association last week changed its policy following an executive order from President Donald Trump.
In a letter to the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) on Tuesday, DOE Deputy General Council Candice Jackson requested that they “rectify” their records.
“The NCAA and NFHS should also immediately act to rectify the injustices that female athletes across the nation endured during the years that NCAA and NFHS policies promoted and facilitated men competing on women’s teams,” wrote Jackson.
“Whether the number of records in women’s events attributed to men is 1 or 1 million, every official record of women’s performances must accurately reflect the achievements of female athletes, not of male ones,” she added.
Trump’s executive order
The letter referenced Trump’s executive order which made it official US policy to oppose the competitive participation of males in women’s sports and prohibited federal funding to any educational program that allows it.
“In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports,” the EO read. “This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
“Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy,” the order continued. “It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
The NCAA changed its policy following the order and no longer allows men to compete against women, though it still allows women to compete against men.
What do women want?
But while women’s sports activists like JK Rowling blame men for placing female athletes at risk, the policies that allowed that practice have been enforced mostly by women. Seven out of nine members of the NCAA’s Inclusion Office, for example, are female. Most articles advocating for men in women’s sports are written by women, including a New York Times piece in December written by Juliet Macur who referred to actual women as “non-transgender women.”
Surveys of women in Western countries have found that the majority of female athletes support men competing against women and do not believe males hold an “unfair advantage” against females. Most men strongly disagree.
A study published last year found that 81% of female athletes think governing bodies should be trying harder to include people who identify as transgender, and 66% believe transgender athletes are treated unfairly in sports. However, 93% of those who compete in world-class level sports and rely heavily on physical competitiveness are against allowing men to compete with women.
According to a 2022 Pew Research poll, 62% of women feel “there is a great deal or a fair amount of discrimination against transgender people.” Only 52% of men agree. Women have also been more likely than men to say it is “extremely or very important” to use a person’s “new” name or “preferred pronouns.”
