The right and women’s sports (not about trans athletes)

Brian Lehrer (0:05)

From WNYC, I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my Daily Politics Podcast. It's Thursday, October 1st.

So let's look at the bigger picture of what it means to protect women's sports. At a time when protecting women's sports has become a conservative talking point. Many Republican politicians have made that a signature issue, as you know, and it's the stated goal behind the Trump administration's executive order, barring transgender women and girls from school athletics. But a new piece in Slate reports that the same administration has cut the staff at the Department of Education that would investigate other violations of Title IX. That's the law that bars sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding, including in sports. That of course is what many anti-trans athletes in women's sports politicians hang their arguments on, that it's sex discrimination against women in college under Title IX.

But what about all the other ways Title IX is supposed to be an anti-discrimination law when Trump and company are dismantling anti-discrimination policies one after another as being anti-DEI? The Slate piece is called The Dismantling of Title IX, and it tells that story through two college beach volleyball players from Texas, for the most part, but also with some bigger thoughts. Joining us now to discuss her reporting is Maggie Mertens, the journalist who wrote that piece. She's also the author of Better Faster Farther, How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women, and host of The Forecast, Seattle's Weekly Women's Sports Show on Kvru out there. Maggie, welcome to WNYC. Hello.

Maggie Mertens (1:51)

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer (1:54)

So, you tell the story through two beach volleyball players at Stephen F. Austin State University in East Texas. They are Ryan Allison and Bryn Dowd.

Briefly, and we'll get to the bigger issues that they represent. Who are they and what happened to them and their team?

Maggie Mertens (2:14)

Yeah. So, Ryan Allison and Bryn Dowd are currently seniors in college at Stephen F. Austin University. And they are both former members of the beach volleyball team there. And what happened in 2025, at the end of their beach volleyball season, the university announced quite suddenly that they were cutting the entire beach volleyball team, along with the women's bowling team and the women's and men's golf teams. And what happened was they filed a Title IX suit. Several of them, there were about nine of them who got together who did not transfer schools. Most of them, you know, left to transfer schools so they can continue playing because their school seemingly didn't want them there anymore.

And they ended up having a season last year. And it was a very interesting season. I started looking into this basically when that happened. They hired a new coach. They were told by the courts they needed to reinstate these teams while the case went through.

And what happened was by the end of this season, Ryan, who was the only person on the case on the Beach volleyball team who had not graduated by the end of this season, was told by the coach, this new coach, that she would not be coming back the next year. So she was essentially cut from the team. And she and her roommate, who was also cut from the team, have filed now a retaliation case, saying that they were cut because of their activities organizing this Title IX case.

Brian Lehrer (3:56)

Right. So there are various controversies there and legal questions there.

But I think as it relates to Title IX most directly, some of the athletes at the school filed a Title IX suit and a preliminary injunction reinstated the team. And here's the relevant stat that raises the question of were they violating the law. A report the University Commission found women were 63 percent of undergrads but only held 40 percent of sports team roster spots. So that violates Title IX in and of itself?

Maggie Mertens (4:31)

Absolutely. And this is not uncommon. I know very much most universities are somewhere out of compliance with Title IX on that front.

Now the way that, you know, if something gets brought up like this, such as a suit, the way that they can prove that, you know, okay, we don't need to be punished for this, they can say we're working towards compliance, right? But working towards compliance does not mean cutting women's sports teams. So that's where they're kind of in hot water here.

Brian Lehrer (5:03)

Oh, right. No kidding.

A lot of listeners may hear that stat and that it generally applies, or stats in those directions apply to so many schools and think, well, guys are just more interested in playing sports. What would you or a Title IX advocate say to that?