One of college sports’ winningest coaches thinks Title IX is ‘out the window’
Geno Auriemma has been the women’s basketball coach at Connecticut since 1985, and the way he views the piece of landmark legislation that made his career possible is sad.
“It appears to me that at the big conference level, I think Title IX legislation is probably over,” Auriemma said Thursday afternoon during his press conference when I asked him if women’s college sports can exist without Title IX.
Despite his experience, leave it to a college kid who knows if her game can keep going without Title IX.
“I don’t think women’s sports would carry on the way it is without Title IX,” North Carolina junior guard Sydney Barker said Thursday. “We would be passionate enough to want to pursue sports, but we would not have those opportunities if certain policies, and legislation, was not in place.”
Title IX is one of the most significant pieces of legislation America has passed in the last 55 years; signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972, the state of women’s sports in the U.S., and the world, would not be what it is today without it. This includes the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, which comes to Fort Worth this weekend at Dickies Arena.
Title IX created a new world for American girls who have no idea what a life is like without the ability to play sports.
“I was always meant to play sports, and I was raised that way,” UConn junior guard Ashlynn Shade.
And if Title IX was proposed today, it would be sent to the shredder. It now potentially falls into the type of policy that the current administration targets for modification, or repeal. Put it under the same umbrella as Roe v. Wade, which was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022, or DEI policies that have been removed, or reduced to nothing, in the past 14 months.
UConn’s Geno Auriemma said Title IX is ‘out the window’
Title IX ensures schools that receive federal funding can’t discriminate based on gender, and must prove they are making every attempt to provide equal dollars for men and women. In a college athletic department, the problem is football; it has no equal to women’s sports. Football takes up an enormous part of a budget, both in funding and scholarships.
This week, a women’s sports advocacy group filed a new complaint against TCU to the Department of Education, claiming the university does not offer the same athletic opportunities for women.
The other problem for Title IX is that this legislation spidered into areas not originally intended. Specifically, this includes potential sexual assault claims at schools and universities, and now transgender athletes.
The current administration has attacked both, and prioritized “keeping men out of women’s sports” by barring people assigned as male at birth from playing women’s sports.
In June 2025, the Department of Energy said it would investigate schools, athletic associations and state education departments to pursue “the president’s directives to bar transgender athletes from girls’ sports and eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at schools,” according to The Education Week.
It was odd to see the Department of Energy pursue it, and it was dropped in September.
All of this noise underscores the potential vulnerability, but maybe not a gutting, of women’s college sports.
Auriemma’s opinion about Title IX going “out the window” stems from the revenue-share agreement where college athletic departments can pay their student-athletes up to a maximum of $20.5 million. Most of this money is going to men’s basketball and football players.
This was made possible in February 2025 when the Department of Education repealed a policy enacted by the previous administration that said the revenue must be distributed equally among the student-athletes. In a world where everything is supposed to be equal, the rev-share can now be unequal.
“I’m sure there are some schools that are trying really hard to stay with [Title IX policy] in terms of numbers, [and] scholarship opportunities for people,” Auriemma said, “but when it comes time for funding and putting money into those programs that would make you believe that it’s the same, I don’t see that as much anymore as I did in the beginning.”
The detail has some proponents of women’s sports concerned it could be widened to use to justify reducing scholarships, or programs.
The argument against fully funded women’s college sports programs is they lose money. Also, other than football, they’re all losers. A college baseball team is the equivalent of a burn barrel full of money. Men’s basketball generates the second-most amount of money for a college athletic department, but few teams actually make more than they spend.
Title IX must stay
My mother attended the University of North Carolina when it was a two-year school for girls. When she was raised in her native Charleston, West Virginia, she had few opportunities to play sports.
The women’s athletes today at North Carolina can neither conceive that their school was once only a two-year school for girls, or a world where they would not play sports.
“We take it for granted, because [sports] have been accessible,” Barker said. “I don’t think I think about that enough, and people, like your mom, fought for us to have what we do have. It’s something we should all think about more.”
Even if only family ‘n’ friends and the crazy college townie are in the stands to watch, the world is better if the girls play. You may not have noticed, most of the men’s sports are attended by the same number of people.
The games have given multiple generations of American girls the chance for the life lessons, an identity and a source of self-confidence that sports can provide.
“I cannot imagine my life without sports,” North Carolina sophomore guard Lanie Grant said. “I have no clue who I would be, what I would be doing, or what would be filling my time.”
Women’s sports have grown, but they still need a piece of five-decade-old legislation for protection.
This story was originally published March 27, 2026 at 9:27 AM.
