NCAA has failed female athletes

OPINION:

As an NCAA volleyball athlete in my last season, I am soaking in the incredible joy of being on a great team of amazing young women. But I won’t end my career quietly without continuing to fight for the generation of women coming after me.

The fight for fair play is gaining momentum as female athletes like me speak out for fair competition. I wish the NCAA had a leader join the millions of Americans who want to protect women’s sports for women only. Few current athletes speak up while they compete, as they fear coaches, administrators, college presidents and even the NCAA president, Charlie Baker.

Nevertheless, I will end my career in sports, playing hard and speaking up as loud as ever about this injustice.

Nine governors have signed a letter to the National Collegiate Athletic Association demanding answers regarding its policy regarding female athletes competing against biological males. We all want answers.

But in his testimony a few weeks ago before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, had no answers regarding the NCAA’s abhorrent “inclusion” policies on men identifying as women in female athletics. He claims to champion progress for women’s sports, but he seems intent on turning the clock back 50 years.

In his testimony, Mr. Baker said he wouldn’t defend what happened in 2022 because he “wasn’t there.” Well, Mr. Baker, we were there.

My fellow athletes watched as Lia Thomas took away the chance for female athletes to compete in the sport they had trained for their whole lives.

We watched as my friend Kylee Alons, a 31-time All-American North Carolina State swimmer, had to dress in a storage closet in order to avoid being exposed to male genitalia in the locker room or have him gawk at her while she dressed.

And we watched as my friend Riley Gaines was told she wasn’t welcome to stand on the winners podium and to wait for her trophy in the mail as the league celebrated a man stealing that trophy from her.

As an NCAA athlete, I have relentlessly fought to right this wrong with Young Women for America, the collegiate and high school program of Concerned Women for America. Not only have we appealed to Congress and several state legislatures, but this past January, we went to NCAA leaders at their annual convention. Alongside Riley and dozens of former athletes, we hand-delivered a demand letter simply asking the NCAA to stop discriminating against female athletes.

Although it pains me to say it, the man who won the women’s national championship that day was completely in bounds to the rules the NCAA set. You read that right. The NCAA regulations allowed Lia Thomas to jump from 462nd in men’s swimming to winning the women’s championship by 7 seconds. Now, we are seeing this occur in other athletic events.

Mr. Baker says the NCAA has “very specific rules and standards around the safety and security of all their student-athletes,” though he has taken no steps to amend these rules since the blatant discrimination occurred at the national swimming championships. He may say he doesn’t defend them, but he refuses to change them even amid cries from the athletes under his current leadership. These “very specific rules” include allowing males in female locker rooms.

It’s now clear: Mr. Baker’s leadership hasn’t loosened the NCAA from the firm grip of regressive ideology. Though he may not defend the events of the 2022 Women’s Swimming and Diving National Championship, mirroring events can occur in other sports tomorrow under the rules of his current tenure. When pressed on the issue, the NCAA quickly points the finger at other sports governing bodies to protect female athletes. Meanwhile, they promote “equity and inclusion” themselves.

Mr. Baker hasn’t exactly sat on his hands this past year as president as he champions the growth of women’s sports. This could all be in vain as the NCAA continues to leave real women behind in its “progress.” What’s the point of increased visibility, scholarships, roster spots, and more in the women’s category if there aren’t policies ensuring that actual female athletes occupy them?

Occurrences are exploding across the country in all levels of female athletics where males are stepping in and taking spots from females: swimming, running, team sports and individual sports. A can of worms has been opened, and Mr. Baker must correct this now before a generation of girls loses out.

I’ve worked my whole life to be where I am today as an NCAA athlete. I continue to sacrifice through college to compete at this level — missing friends’ weddings and family funerals and placing everything on the back burner to fulfill the expectations of a collegiate athlete, which is a great privilege. But still, every single day, the NCAA has no respect for that hard work and dedication.

Quickly, without a second thought, they strip women of fair competition to affirm the backward feelings of a very few men. The work to ensure that equal opportunity is forgotten and replaced with radical gender theories that allow men to dominate sports once again.

And further, the pleas from within fall on deaf ears. They’ve ignored the athletes, continuing to jeopardize our safety and risk the positions we’ve worked our whole lives for.

Charlie Baker, of all people, should know the irreplaceable impact of sports. He was a collegiate athlete himself, as were his wife and two of his children. He noted that sports is “the most successful human potential development machine we have.”

Of all the lessons there is to learn in college athletics, getting kicked to the side because of your sex shouldn’t be one of them. The NCAA should take the long-overdue action to protect female opportunity by standing firm on sex-based separation, no matter the political pressure that comes.

• Macy Petty is an NCAA college volleyball player and a leader with Young Women for America, the collegiate program of Concerned Women for America.