SCORE Act Delay Deemed a Small Victory for Title IX Advocates

House Republicans abandoned plans to pass the SCORE Act this month as a delicate bipartisan coalition pushing codification of student-athlete pay crumbled, in part due to late-stage changes to the legislation that advocates say would have disadvantaged female athletes.

“There’s no mood for consolidating more money in Power Two conferences at the expense of all the other conferences and small to mid-size schools because that’s just going to accelerate the trend of cutting Olympic or women’s sports,” said Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a former Division I volleyball player who sits on the committee of jurisdiction.

The move is at least a temporary victory for Title IX advocates who have opposed the bill and similar policy proposals. They are also appealing to have a $2.8 billion player-pay antitrust settlement with the NCAA overturned and fighting individual schools’ efforts to cut programs.

“The recent failure of the SCORE Act marks a pivotal moment for college athletics and the protection of student-athlete rights,” said Leigh Ernst Friestedt, an attorney representing female athletes appealing that settlement, which was approved in June and paves the way for schools to pay athletes directly.

“While the bill sought to establish a national framework for NIL compensation and athlete protections, its provisions would have dismantled women’s sports,” Friestedt told Bloomberg Law.

She and other advocates say the SCORE Act, if enacted, could delegitimize Title IX, the bedrock law supporting gender equality in college athletics.

The bill (H.R. 4312), which was pulled from the floor ahead of a Dec. 3 vote, would provide a limited antitrust exemption to the NCAA and explicitly prohibit student-athletes from being considered employees, now and in the future.

The act’s backers say it would protect the NIL rights of athletes and promote fair competition. It would give member schools certain liability protections and preempt some state laws.

House leadership said in December they were interested in bringing the bill back up, but other details were scarce and the legislative year ended without a vote.

Title IX Compliance

Meghann Burke, executive director of the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association, said the bill would dismantle Title IX compliance, “stripping athletes of organizing rights and protecting a system that leaves women behind.”

“The SCORE Act is being presented as a modernization of college athletics,” Burke said. “In reality, it creates a dangerous new framework, what you might call the Title IX backslide, into one that rewrites equality backwards.”

The bill would give schools until July 1, 2027, to get “in compliance” with Title IX. Friestedt said she thinks the deadline is designed to give power-conference schools more time to comply the law’s prohibitions on sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities receiving federal assistance.

But “Title IX requires compliance right now,” Burke said.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.), a cosponsor of the bill, said it would safeguard Olympic and women’s sports teams and provide “much needed guardrails” that ensure student-athletes can benefit from NIL.

“Establishing school liability protections ensures compliance with fair rules and reduces the threat of frivolous lawsuits that strain university budgets and jeopardize athletic programs themselves,” he said. “Its federal preemption provision ensures that we have one consistent national framework, putting an end to the patchwork of conflicting state laws and conflicting court rulings.”

Winners and Losers

The SCORE Act and the legal settlement threaten to exacerbate inequality among programs and schools, advocates say.

Schools in what had been the five most historically competitive NCAA conferences would benefit most from the bill, Friestedt said—the same schools benefiting from the settlement.

And among the settlement defendants, 57 of the 65 schools “appear not to be in compliance with Title IX based on 2023-24 Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act data,” according to the Drake Group, an organization that seeks policy changes in intercollegiate athletics.

Roster Sizes

Title IX compliance is “always achievable,” but schools don’t prioritize women’s sports and leave many roster spots for football, according to John Clune, an attorney with Hutchinson Black & Cook appealing the settlement. Title IX requires that women and men get equitable opportunities to participate in sports.

Clune said he is concerned about traditional women’s and Olympic sports being replaced with ones that have large rosters, such as cheer and dance.

The US Olympic & Paralympic Committee raised similar concerns, urging Congress in July to take up a bill that “avoids unintended consequences for non-revenue sports,” such as widespread program cuts.

“Implementing restrictive sport sponsorship minimums could result in the loss of 2,000–3,000 Olympic sport opportunities across the collegiate system over the next five years alone, with an estimated $20.5 million in lost annual support for Olympic-sport athletes,” the letter said.

School by School Approach

More athletes who are being stripped of athletic opportunities due to the roster cuts after the House settlement are taking action.

Friestedt is also challenging the settlement on behalf of two female athletes who were supposed to be on the Division I swimming team at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo but were “denied an opportunity” to participate when the program was cut in March.

Clune got programs temporarily reinstated at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas and Concordia University Irvine in California.

But only a few lawyers handle these suits, he said, and the difficulty has been exacerbated by the limited operation of the Office of Civil Rights, the DOJ division that is supposed to oversee Title IX compliance.

Friestedt, who founded the boutique firm Equity IX LLC, said it would be a “very long and arduous process” to get individual programs reinstated, as Clune is doing, which requires proof of irreparable harm.

“It’s going to be too late for women unless we get some traction in the courts,” Friestedt said.