A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden dismissed Riley Gaines’ remaining Title IX claims against the NCAA, ruling that the organization itself does not receive federal financial assistance and therefore cannot be held liable under the statute, a decision Gaines and her supporters vowed to appeal.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A federal judge has dismissed former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines’ remaining Title IX lawsuit against the NCAA, ruling that the governing body of college athletics cannot be sued under the federal sex-discrimination statute because the evidence did not establish that the NCAA receives federal financial assistance.
U.S. District Judge Tiffany R. Johnson of the Northern District of Georgia issued the ruling Monday, according to the Daily Mail, dealing a setback to Gaines and other female athletes who challenged the NCAA’s former policies permitting transgender women to compete in women’s collegiate sports.
Johnson was nominated to the federal bench by then-President Joe Biden in July 2024 and confirmed by the Senate that December.
The case centered on whether the NCAA could be held directly responsible under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance.
Johnson concluded that it could not.
“Here, there is no evidence that the NCAA ever received, or could have received, federal funds,” Johnson wrote. “Thus, Plaintiffs’ Title IX claims cannot proceed.”
The ruling rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the NCAA should be considered subject to Title IX because its member colleges and universities receive federal education funding.
That distinction ultimately proved decisive.
Although colleges and universities receiving federal funds generally must comply with Title IX, Johnson found that the NCAA’s relationship with those institutions does not itself make the association a recipient of federal financial assistance.
The decision followed an earlier stage of the case in which Johnson had allowed the athletes’ Title IX theory against the NCAA to survive long enough for the parties to conduct discovery into whether the organization received federal money through a Department of Defense research partnership. The earlier ruling found the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged federal funding, but the latest decision came after development of the evidentiary record.
Gaines immediately said the plaintiffs would challenge the dismissal.
“This momentary setback will not deter me or other women athletes in the least,” Gaines said Monday. “Rest assured, we will be appealing this decision. We are on the side of truth. I am confident Americans will rally to our side to fight the NCAA. Working together, we will defeat the NCAA’s continuing efforts to trample women’s rights in sports.”
Gaines became one of the most prominent critics of transgender participation in women’s athletics following the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.
Then competing for the University of Kentucky, Gaines raced against University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman.
Gaines and Thomas tied for fifth place in the women’s 200-yard freestyle.
The experience became central to Gaines’ subsequent advocacy and to the federal lawsuit, which was filed with other female college athletes challenging the NCAA’s policies governing transgender participation.
The plaintiffs alleged that the NCAA violated their rights by permitting transgender women to compete in women’s events and by allowing athletes they described as biological males access to women’s locker-room facilities.
The lawsuit sought to hold the NCAA accountable under Title IX and other legal theories for policies in place during the period when Thomas competed.
The legal dispute has narrowed considerably since the case was originally filed in March 2024.
Johnson dismissed several other claims in an earlier ruling, including claims against Georgia defendants and constitutional claims against the NCAA. The Title IX claim against the NCAA remained because the plaintiffs had alleged that the organization might qualify as a recipient of federal funds through its research relationships.
Discovery into that issue produced the ruling issued Monday.
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports, or ICONS, which has supported the athletes’ litigation, said the court applied Title IX too narrowly and predicted that an appeals court would reverse the decision.
“We believe the district judge erred and that the Court of Appeals will find that the NCAA, which is the controlling body of college sports for more than 1,100 member schools, almost all of which are federally funded, is subject to Title IX. We will not give up our fight for women and girls’ rights in sports,” said ICONS co-founder Kim Jones, a former NCAA All-American tennis player.
The organization’s position focuses on the NCAA’s extensive control over intercollegiate athletics at institutions that themselves receive federal assistance.
The court reached a different conclusion, finding that Title IX’s funding requirement applies to the entity receiving federal assistance rather than extending automatically to an organization because federally funded institutions belong to it.
That issue has long been significant in litigation involving the NCAA.
The U.S. Supreme Court held in a 1999 case involving the NCAA that receiving dues from federally funded member institutions was not, by itself, sufficient to make the NCAA a recipient of federal financial assistance under Title IX.
Gaines and the other plaintiffs sought to distinguish their case in part by arguing that other federal financial relationships brought the NCAA within the statute.
Johnson ultimately determined that the evidence developed in the case did not establish the necessary funding connection.
The ruling addresses whether the NCAA can be sued under Title IX; it does not constitute a judicial determination that the NCAA’s former transgender-athlete policies were substantively fair or unfair.
Without the threshold requirement of federal financial assistance, the court concluded that the plaintiffs could not proceed to have their remaining Title IX claims decided on the merits.
ICONS co-founder Marshi Smith said the organization believes the outcome demonstrates the need to continue challenging the NCAA through the courts.
“The NCAA’s refusal to recognize its responsibility to uphold women’s rights means the NCAA cannot be trusted to regulate anyone’s sports – men’s or women’s,” Smith said.
The lawsuit arose during a period of rapid changes in both federal and collegiate policies governing transgender athletes.
The NCAA altered its participation policy in February 2025, after President Donald Trump returned to office, limiting competition on NCAA women’s teams to athletes assigned female at birth. Georgia subsequently enacted legislation bearing Gaines’ name restricting transgender participation in female scholastic and collegiate sports.
Those subsequent changes affected some of the requests for prospective relief in the lawsuit but did not eliminate the plaintiffs’ claims concerning their past experiences.
Gaines’ case therefore continued principally as an effort to obtain legal accountability for the NCAA policies that were in effect when she and the other plaintiffs competed.
Monday’s dismissal turns the immediate legal battle away from the factual allegations surrounding those competitions and toward a narrower question of federal law: whether the NCAA has the type of financial relationship with the federal government required for Title IX liability.
For now, Johnson has answered that question in the NCAA’s favor.
Gaines and ICONS say they intend to ask a federal appeals court to reach the opposite conclusion, ensuring that the dispute over the NCAA’s former transgender-athlete policies — and whether the organization can be held directly liable under Title IX — will continue beyond the district court.
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