The Protect College Sports Act Could Erode The Gains Made In Protecting Women's Sports For Women

The CEO for Alliance Defending Freedom, Kristen Waggoner, released a video message urging people to oppose the Protect College Sports Act in its current form. For according to the nonprofit Christian conservative legal advocacy group, the language of the popularly termed "Save College Sports Act" is imprecise. With the language of the bill being "ambiguous" to the point to where a liberal judge could misuse the act to override the laws in 27 states that protect women's sports. As Waggoner explains it, the Alliance Defending Freedom has been in court for twelve years working hard to protect women's sports for America's daughters, but the Protect College Sports Act could single-handedly undo all of the gains that have been recently achieved with the U.S. Supreme Court decision on June 30th that upheld Idaho's and West Virginia's women's sports laws. Therefore, Kristen Waggoner is urging people to oppose the "well-intentioned" Protect College Sports Act i current form.

At issue in the Protect College Sports Act is a clause that includes vague preemption language. While supporters of the bill maintain that the bill does not preempt state laws, Alliance Defending Freedom maintains that the bill needs to be amended to clarify that it doesn't preempt state laws that maintain women's sports for biological females. For in West Virginia alone, one boy displaced over 470 girls more than 1,400 times, including by taking a state championship in a "women's" sport. A red herring of sorts, the Protect College Sports Act doesn't fully safeguard the provisions of Title IX, the landmark 1972 civil rights law that became a launching pad for women's athletics in the USA.

While the focus of the Protect College Sports Act is to make amendments to the Name Image and Likeness deals that have run amok in college athletics, opponents of the Protect College Sports Act insist that until Congress passes legislation protecting women's sports for biological women in all 50 U.S. states, no bill should be passed that undermines the 27 states that currently have legislation in place protecting women's sports for women. Those 27 states being primarily Southern states and midwestern states such as Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa among others. The Chief Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, Kristen Waggoner, insists that there is a simple fix available for the Protect College Sports Act, which is to , "Ensure the preemption of state laws is narrow."

Luisa Reyes is a Tuscaloosa attorney, piano instructor, vocalist, reporter, poet, and columnist who writes about politics, current events and the arts.