Pro-family groups urge Ted Cruz to amend college sports bill to protect state women’s sports laws

A coalition of pro-family organizations is urging Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Eric Schmitt of Missouri to amend a major college sports bill, warning that its current language could undermine state laws that ensure women do not have to compete against men in sports.

In a Sept. 10 letter shared with Zeale News, family policy councils from 27 states joined the national Family Policy Alliance in calling for an amendment to the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA) expressly preserving state laws that determine eligibility for women’s teams based on sex instead of “gender identity.”

Many of the organizations helped enact those protections in their respective states. 

“Our organizations invested years of advocacy and legislative engagement to bring these protections into law, and this past June, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that such laws are constitutional and consistent with Title IX,” the coalition wrote, referring to the court’s June 30 rulings in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, which upheld sex-based sports laws in West Virginia and Idaho.

“It would be deeply counterproductive if a federal bill designed to bring order to college athletics inadvertently created a pathway to undo these protections,” the group added. 

Cruz and Schmitt introduced PCSA alongside Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Chris Coons of Delaware. The legislation seeks to establish nationwide rules governing college athletics, including name, image, and likeness compensation, athlete transfers, scholarships, health care, and eligibility. The Senate adjourned for its August recess without voting on the legislation, leaving it pending before the full chamber. 

The coalition said it supports the bill’s efforts to address “real problems in college sports,” such as “instability, inconsistent transfer policies, and regulatory confusion.” But it raised major concerns about Section 121, which would prevent states from maintaining any law “relating to the eligibility” of student athletes as addressed in Section 113.

Because state women’s sports laws generally operate by declaring male athletes ineligible for female teams, the organizations warned that the broad preemption language could be interpreted as overriding those protections. 

“We are not alone in our concerns with the PCSA,” the coalition wrote, noting that multiple senators, attorneys general from at least seven states, and prominent national organizations have raised concerns about the same risk.

“When experienced attorneys and policy leaders who share the goal of protecting women’s sports reach divergent conclusions about what the bill’s text actually does, the appropriate response is to refine the language so the debate becomes unnecessary,” the letter stated. 

The bill’s sponsors and the Trump administration, however, have disputed that interpretation, saying that the PCSA would not preempt state laws. 

The coalition is not asking lawmakers to shelve the act entirely, but is urging them instead to add a “narrow amendment” expressly preserving state laws governing sex-based athletic eligibility and clarifying that the PCSA’s preemption provisions do not apply to those laws. 

Such an amendment would eliminate “the interpretive risk without altering the bill’s core reforms,” the coalition wrote. “A bill that clearly respects state women’s sports protections will command broader and more durable support.”

Policy groups from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming signed the letter. 

The letter follows an earlier warning from CatholicVote, which said in August that it would score a vote for the existing bill against senators unless the legislation explicitly protects state women’s sports laws. 

CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky said the bill’s language was “broad enough that it could preempt or undermine those state eligibility rules,” as Zeale News previously reported. 

>> CatholicVote warns Ted Cruz college sports bill poses threat to women’s sports <<

“For some inexplicable reason the sponsors of this bill refuse to listen to reason, instead seeking to garner Democrat support for their bill by throwing women under the (sport) bus,” McClusky told Zeale News at the time.

Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Jim Banks of Indiana, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama filed an amendment Aug. 6 seeking to protect state women’s sports laws. State attorneys general and Alliance Defending Freedom have raised similar concerns about Cruz’s bill.

“Our organizations are on the ground in state capitols every session, working alongside lawmakers, coaches, parents, and athletes to defend the gains women have made in competitive sports,” the coalition concluded. “We urge you to ensure the Protect College Sports Act strengthens — rather than jeopardizes — those protections.”