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Title IX Participation Opportunity Trends in California
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits educational programs receiving federal financial assistance from discriminating against students on the basis of sex. 20 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq. Title IX’s implementing regulations provide: “No person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, be treated differently from another person or otherwise be discriminated against in any interscholastic, intercollegiate, club or intramural athletics offered by a recipient, and no recipient shall provide any such athletics separately on such basis.” 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(a). This single sentence changed the landscape for girls’ athletics nationwide.
In order to meet the substantial proportionality required by Title IX in California public schools, there need to be, conservatively, over 70,000 more opportunities added for girls throughout the state. (While a school could show a history and continuing practice of adding opportunities, that is an individualized determination by institution, and the data overall, as shown below, does not show such a trend. Similarly, the argument that allows schools to show interest is fully accommodated by current programs is an individualized inquiry not contemplated in this memo.) To determine if a school has equitable participation opportunities as required by Title IX, the school should examine whether participation opportunities are substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments, counting “actual participants” on teams. Cohen v. Brown, 101 F.3d 155, 163 (1st Cir. 1996).
In California, public schools are required annually to make public their athletic participation data. Cal. Educ. Code § 221.9. At the same time, the California Interscholastic Federation (“CIF”), the state-wide governing body for high school sports, conducts a census of 1600 California high schools to collect athletic participation data. After collected, the CIF makes the data available publicly, accessible at https://www.cifstate.org/coaches-admin/census/index. Below are the findings for the participation gap in California over the last six years of reported data*:
| YEAR | % GIRLS | % BOYS | % GIRL OPPS | % BOY OPPS | PARTICIPATION GAP | GAP BY # |
| 2018-2019 | 49.2% | 50.8% | 43.4% | 56.6% | 5.7% | 77,522 |
| 2019-2020 | 49.2% | 50.8% | 43.4% | 56.6% | 5.7% | 85,964 |
| 2020-2021 | No data reporting because of the COVID-19 Pandemic | |||||
| 2021-2022 | 49.3% | 50.7% | 43.1% | 56.9% | 6.1% | 83,378 |
| 2022-2023 | 48.9% | 51.1% | 42.8% | 57.2% | 6.1% | 94,139 |
| 2023-2024 | 48.6% | 51.4% | 43.6% | 56.4% | 5.0% | 80,574 |
| 2024-2025 | 48.5% | 51.5% | 44.2% | 55.8% | 4.3% | 70,807 |
* Sideline Cheer has been excluded from this calculation, as it is not a sport for purposes of Title IX. See Dear Colleague Letter, Dep’t of Educ. September 17, 2008. The participation opportunity calculation is often inflated by including cheerleading. There is still debate if “competitive cheer” is a sport under Title IX regulations. See Biediger v. Quinnipiac Univ., 616 F. Supp. 2d 277 (D. Conn. 2009). Because of that, the next chart excludes all cheerleading in its calculations:
| YEAR | % GIRLS | % BOYS | % GIRL OPPS | % BOY OPPS | PARTICIPATION GAP | GAP BY # |
| 2018-2019 | 49.2% | 50.8% | 42.4% | 57.6% | 6.8% | 89,900 |
| 2019-2020 | 49.2% | 50.8% | 42.4% | 57.6% | 6.8% | 99,516 |
| 2020-2021 | No data reporting because of the COVID-19 Pandemic | |||||
| 2021-2022 | 49.3% | 50.7% | 41.6% | 58.4% | 7.6% | 101,065 |
| 2022-2023 | 48.9% | 51.1% | 41.3% | 58.7% | 7.6% | 113,520 |
| 2023-2024 | 48.6% | 51.4% | 42.1% | 57.9% | 6.4% | 101,413 |
| 2024-2025 | 48.5% | 51.5% | 42.8% | 57.2% | 5.7% | 92,035 |
