Lia Thomas beat American women for a national title, and the NCAA called it fair.
Riley Gaines sued the NCAA over that exact injustice, demanding a court hold them accountable.
A federal judge just ruled the NCAA can never be held responsible at all.
How a 1999 Title IX Loophole Let the NCAA Dodge Riley Gaines Again
Judge Tiffany R. Johnson granted the NCAA's motion for summary judgment on Monday.
She is a Biden appointee sitting in the Northern District of Georgia.
Her ruling never touched what actually happened to Riley Gaines.
It never asked whether letting a male swimmer compete against women was fair.
Johnson threw out the case on a technicality instead.
She ruled the NCAA does not receive federal money, so Title IX does not apply to it.
That argument is not new.
The Supreme Court blessed this exact dodge back in 1999, when it ruled the NCAA could collect dues from federally funded schools and still walk away clean.
Twenty seven years later, the same escape hatch just saved the organization again.
Gaines and fifteen other women sued in March 2024 after Lia Thomas won a national women's title.
Gaines tied Thomas for fifth place in the 200 yard freestyle and was told only Thomas could hold the trophy for photos.
The University of Pennsylvania was later forced to strip Thomas of her records under a deal with Trump's Department of Education.
The NCAA never did that on its own, and it never held a hearing on Gaines' claims either.
Gaines has said the real indignity was never the scoreboard.
Her own lawsuit says she and other swimmers were left in "distress, shame and humiliation" sharing a locker room with a male competitor.
A judge just ruled that claim does not matter enough to reach a jury.
Congress May Hand the NCAA More Power over Transgender Athlete Policy
The NCAA answered the dismissal with a written statement bragging about its compliance with President Trump's executive order.
It said nothing about the women who spent more than two years fighting for a trial.
The Independent Council on Women's Sports called that response "empty words on a page."
Gaines is not backing down.
She and her attorneys are appealing to the 11th Circuit within thirty days.
Their argument is simple: an organization that governs eleven hundred federally funded schools cannot claim it operates outside federal law.
That fight now heads to appeals judges while Senator Maria Cantwell pushes in the opposite direction.
Cantwell co-authored the Protect College Sports Act, which passed the Senate on Monday and would hand the NCAA broad new authority plus immunity from antitrust lawsuits over its own rules.
ICONS co-founder Marshi Smith said the NCAA "cannot be trusted to regulate anyone's sports."
She is asking the House to kill that bill before it reaches Trump's desk.
House Republicans already passed a bill banning male athletes from women's sports by a vote of 219 to 203.
Not a single Democrat voted yes.
Every parent watching this should be furious right now.
An organization spent more than two years letting men compete against your daughter, got sued over it, and just won the case without a judge ever deciding whether that was right or wrong.
That is not justice.
That is a legal shell game the NCAA has been running since 1999.
Trump had to force the NCAA to change its rules with an executive order, because the organization never would have done it on its own.
Now Cantwell wants Congress to reward that same organization with antitrust protection, days after its lawyers proved a technicality still works in federal court.
Riley Gaines and the women who lost scholarships and records, and had their locker room privacy violated, deserve better than a paperwork dismissal.
Picture the volleyball player Congressman John McGuire keeps talking about, the one left with a spinal cord injury from playing against a more powerful male opponent.
That is the image the NCAA does not want you to see when it talks about "full compliance" in a press release.
Sources:
- Jackson Thompson, "NCAA Responds After Riley Gaines' Lawsuit Is Dismissed, Affirms Compliance With Trump's Executive Order," Fox News, September 29, 2026.
- Fox News Staff, "Riley Gaines' Lawsuit vs NCAA Dismissed by Biden Appointed Judge, Appeal Planned," Fox News, September 29, 2026.
- Daily Wire Staff, "Riley Gaines Responds To NCAA's Latest Title IX Escape Hatch," Daily Wire.
- Fox News Staff, "Riley Gaines Reacts to House Passing Women's Sports Bill: I Feel Grateful," Fox News.
