The Crisis Everyone Sees. And Still Ignores.

OPENING STATEMENTS

From week to week now, the college sports world jumps from one fire to the next. If it’s not the SCORE Act versus the SAFE Act, it’s a new court ruling on athlete eligibility. One day it’s the latest NIL platform fiasco, the next the debate about athlete employment. This week, it’s centered on James Franklin’s $49 million buyout at Penn State, including the implications for college sports and the possible changes that may follow. 

But through all of this noise, one issue never seems to make the agenda, an issue that cuts to the heart of fairness, legality, and credibility in college sports: Title IX compliance.

I’ve been involved in Title IX for decades, from helping to set policy to arguing for individual and team rights. And the current truth is blunt. Most schools are out of compliance with federal law when it comes to gender equity in athletics. The Government Accountability Office estimated last year that 92.7% of college athletic programs fail to meet Title IX’s basic standards, shortchanging women athletes by more than $1.1 BILLION every year in scholarship opportunities, according to The Drake Group.

Let. That. Sink. In. 

For all the talk about “empowering women” through NIL, collectives, and conference realignment, the vast majority of schools aren’t meeting the most basic measure of equity that’s been on the books for 50 years.

More than just bad, the numbers are proof of a broken system. The agency charged with enforcing Title IX, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, has never found a single school in violation. Not one. Why? Because OCR rarely conducts random reviews and ignores the data that clearly shows which schools are out of compliance. Instead, it waits for complaints, relying on the few female athletes willing to take on their own universities by filing formal cases. Even then, schools are never formally found in violation. OCR sidesteps that by using “voluntary resolutions,” deals that let schools avoid penalties as long as they promise to do better next time. It’s accountability in name only, sending a clear message: there’s no real cost to breaking the law.

Meanwhile, the NCAA has washed its hands of responsibility. Title IX isn’t “its job,” the argument goes. And the Department of Education, further under-resourced and politically constrained, rarely takes bold action. So what’s left is a vacuum with no one truly looking out for compliance, and athletes left to fend for themselves unless their program gets cut or a lawsuit is filed.

What’s concerning, and we should all keep our eye on right now, is how and whether schools might try to use NIL as a shortcut. We’re already hearing whispers: maybe NIL earnings could “count” toward balancing the gender equity books. It’s a convenient idea. It’s also completely wrong.

Title IX isn’t about what individual athletes, or their general managers (more below) can hustle for through personal deals or outside fundraising. It’s about institutional responsibility and how schools distribute opportunity, resources, and support. The law was written to ensure that women have equal access to those opportunities regardless of external markets or sponsorships. Using NIL as a workaround is like claiming a bake sale makes up for unequal pay.

What’s happening here isn’t just a policy failure. It’s one of the largest ongoing civil rights violations in American education. And it’s happening in plain sight.

Half of all colleges that aren’t in compliance haven’t added a women’s sport in more than a decade. Some have actually eliminated programs. Female participation rates lag behind enrollment by double digits. Yet we’ve seen swifter, more coordinated action around NIL reform, conference realignment, proposed congressional acts, athlete compensation, and so many others, than we’ve ever seen for gender equity.

That tells you everything about priorities.

If Title IX had real teeth, the system would look different. Federal funding would be at stake. The NCAA could tie compliance to postseason eligibility. But right now, schools can ignore the law with confidence that no one will call them out.

So change happens only when someone forces it: a player who files a complaint, a team that refuses to be cut quietly, a group of athletes who demand what the law already promises them. That’s not how a civil rights system should work.

As college sports race toward a new financial order,  one built on revenue sharing and collective bargaining, we’re watching the same institutions that can build NIL marketplaces and navigate billion-dollar media contracts still claim they can’t field equitable teams.

If that’s not the definition of misplaced priorities, what is?

EXHIBIT A

I get a lot of questions about student-athlete employment and whether it’s going to happen. The team at Sports Litigation Alert recently issued a great overview. Their breakdown of Johnson v. NCAA and the broader legal landscape cuts through the noise, showing how the courts continue to side with athlete rights, and how slow institutional change has been to follow. One of the big takeaways? Administrators need to have a contingency plan. Employment status for athletes may not be here yet, but the writing is on the wall. As the authors note, waiting for a legal mandate is a risk, not a strategy.

EXHIBIT B

If you missed it, University of San Diego president James Harris offered one of the most clear-eyed takes yet on the Power 4 conferences’ place in college sports. His New York Times op-ed argued that they should break off and form their own association. Regardless of your position, and it’s hard to miss the logic, it’s this passage that cuts through one of the biggest myths about football revenue and fairness across Division I:

“Consider one common misconception about major college football — that it generates much of the funding for lower-level football programs and for other sports. In reality, the massive revenue that the top football conferences generate from TV deals goes directly back to them. The rest of the N.C.A.A. membership relies almost exclusively on the revenue from the Division I men’s basketball tournament, known as March Madness.

“Yet the wider Division I membership shares the burden of paying for the lawsuit settlements that the Power Four schools either largely created or would benefit the most from. For example, it is expected that the biggest winners in the recent $2.8 billion settlement reached as part of the House v. N.C.A.A. lawsuit — which compensated former players and paved the way for universities to make direct payments to athletes — will be football stars from the big four conferences. However, all N.C.A.A. Division I members had to contribute to the settlement.”

ON THE DOCKET

As mentioned above, Syracuse’s hiring of Mykala Walker as women’s basketball GM is another strong sign of where the sport is headed. Given my love for women’s basketball, I can’t applaud this any louder. With her NIL and fundraising background, Walker can help players turn opportunity into real value. As always for me, though, it raises bigger questions that will take time to answer. Are we seeing the rise of a new model where every team has its own GM driving NIL deals? If so, that could finally spread better and dedicated opportunities beyond football and men’s basketball. But history offers a warning—when the money and power dynamics shift, athletic departments often pull back control. Title IX coordinators once had real independence, too. Let’s hope this time, that authority doesn’t fade just as it starts to matter.

FOOTNOTES

538.

The number of full-year, out-of-state athletic scholarships that former Penn State football coach James Franklin’s $49 million buyout would cover. Figuring that many of the school’s athletes are from Pennsylvania, it would likely cover every one of the university’s more than 800 athletes.