Legal Experts Warn Congress to Clarify College Sports Act Language to Preserve State Women’s Athletics Laws

A coalition of legal experts and advocates is urging Congress to revise the language of the Protect College Sports Act before passage, warning that its current wording could inadvertently undermine protections for female athletes that 27 states have enacted. The bill, which addresses name, image and likeness deals and player transfers at the collegiate level, contains provisions that legal scholars say are sufficiently vague to allow courts to invalidate state-level sex-based eligibility rules in athletic competition.

The Supreme Court on June 30 upheld laws in Idaho and West Virginia that restrict athletic competition based on biological sex, affirming states’ authority to establish such eligibility standards. That ruling followed years of litigation involving female athletes prevented from competing fairly against male competitors, including one case in West Virginia where a single athlete displaced more than 470 girls across multiple competitions, capturing a state championship in the process.

According to advocates who have litigated these cases extensively, the Protect College Sports Act’s broad language on eligibility could be interpreted by hostile administrations or activist judges as preempting state laws that classify eligibility based on sex. The bill also does not sufficiently protect Title IX protections, which authorize separate facilities for male and female athletes, legal experts contend.

Proposed solutions would tighten the bill’s language to explicitly preserve state women’s sports laws and safeguard Title IX provisions while still achieving the legislation’s primary goals regarding athlete compensation. Supporters of the fix argue that protecting women’s athletics and addressing collegiate sports finances are not mutually exclusive objectives and should be treated as such in the legislation’s final form.