Full Breakdown
Scott Yenor’s Title IX Reform Proposal and Its Implications for Women’s Sports
7/18/2026, 1:02:46 AM
Core Proposal
Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Dr. Scott Yenor, a Boise State University professor, has released a report urging the dismantling of Title IX’s “proportionality mandates.” The proposal would allow schools to replace elite women’s athletic programs—including scholarship-bearing varsity teams—with non-competitive activities such as yoga, hiking clubs, and cheerleading. It also seeks exemptions for “major revenue-producing male sports,” most notably football, arguing that women’s participation “takes away resources that could be given to men’s teams.” Yenor frames the change as a return to a “humane social order” in which women focus on homemaking and fertility.
Background & Context
The report follows recent Supreme Court rulings that restrict transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports. Heritage’s broader agenda, outlined in the far-right “Project 2025” playbook, aims to reshape federal policy on gender and education. Yenor’s analysis builds on this momentum, linking anti-trans rhetoric to a broader critique of Title IX’s impact on both cisgender women and men.
Key Figures & Groups
- Scott Yenor – Senior research fellow, Heritage Foundation; author of the Title IX report.
- Heritage Foundation – Conservative think tank driving Project 2025.
- Shiwali Patel – Senior Director of Education Justice, National Women’s Law Center, who defends Title IX’s original intent.
- Anima Adjepong – Department Head of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, University of Cincinnati, who labeled the proposal “incredibly sexist.”
- Zane McNeill – Legal fellow, Lawyers for Good Government, who warned the report’s arguments could undermine civil-rights protections.
- Amy Acton, Seth Moulton, Tom Suozzi, Gavin Newsom – Democratic officials who have publicly opposed trans-inclusion bans and, by extension, Yenor’s broader agenda.
Data & Statistics
- Title IX’s proportionality test requires athletic opportunities to roughly match campus gender enrollment (e.g., 60 % women students -> ~60 % women athletes).
- Men’s collegiate soccer programs have remained near 200 teams since the 1990s, while women’s soccer enjoys a “world-class pipeline” that Yenor claims is hampered by Title IX.
- The report argues that “men are falling behind women when it comes to college enrollment and academic achievement,” attributing part of the gap to Title IX-driven resource allocation.
Criticism & Opposition
Shiwali Patel emphasized that Title IX’s drafters recognized low early-female participation was due to lack of opportunity, not lack of interest, and that expanding access “creates a mutually reinforcing cycle of interest.” Adjepong called Yenor’s plan “incredibly sexist” and warned it represents “a broader attack on women.” Democratic candidates, including Ohio gubernatorial hopeful Amy Acton, have denounced the rhetoric as harmful to transgender youth and to women’s rights.
Official Statements & Responses
Heritage affiliates argue that current Title IX enforcement constitutes “social engineering” that forces women into “more aggressive, more competitive, more male” roles, contrary to “the destiny written in her sex or biology.” Zane McNeill noted that such legal theories “are carefully crafted to undermine civil-rights protections generally” and that Heritage’s policy blueprint has already been more than 50 % implemented under the Trump administration.
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
Yenor contends that Title IX suppresses men’s sports, citing the stagnant number of men’s soccer teams. University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell disputes this, arguing that elite talent development occurs well before college and that NCAA soccer is “fading into obscurity” as a pipeline for national teams. No empirical study directly links Title IX to reduced men’s-soccer performance, leaving the claim unverified.
Verbatim Quotes
- “If we want a great nation, we should be preparing young women to become mothers [...] not finding every reason for young women to delay motherhood until they are established in a career or sufficiently independent.” — Scott Yenor, Heritage Foundation senior research fellow
- “The current Title IX regime as applied to sports (and elsewhere) is part of a sustained social engineering effort that is 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,” — Scott Yenor, Heritage Foundation senior research fellow
- “It’s incredibly sexist,” — Anima Adjepong, Department Head of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, University of Cincinnati
- “This is only the most recent evidence that legal theories that rely on anti-trans talking points are carefully crafted to undermine civil rights protections generally,” — Zane McNeill, legal fellow, Lawyers for Good Government
- “He wrote: Title IX has actively suppressed the growth of men’s sports since the early 1990s, when enforcement of the 1972 law underwent sweeping changes .” — Scott Yenor, Heritage Foundation scholar
