Dawn Staley admonishes Trump administration reversal of college athletic revenue-sharing guidelines

Outspoken South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley didn’t hold back this week when asked about the Trump administration’s decision to remove Title IX protections from any future revenue-sharing distribution, describing it as a step backwards for women’s sports, according to the Greenville News.

“I don’t know if it’s a knee-jerk reaction, I don’t know if this is just a chauvinistic viewpoint, but part of this whole revenue sharing lawsuit with football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and if they just use women’s basketball to be a part of the suit to get it across the finish line, only time will tell,” Staley told the Greenville News after Thursday night’s win over Florida.

“But this doesn’t help the situation, so I just hope that leaders on campuses will do the right thing and the right thing is give women their due. We’ll never be able to be in a position of helping if we don’t get help from the decision makers. We are in a really good place overall, this is going to take us back.”

The U.S. Department of Education, under Trump’s leadership, recently revoked Title IX guidance issued by the Biden administration that directed universities to share any revenue distributed to student-athletes proportionately between male and female athletes. The previous administration issued a nine-page memo on Jan. 16, just four days before Donald Trump was officially sworn in as the United States’ 47th president, that Title IX — the historic 1972 law that mandates gender equality across athletics and education — applies to potential revenue-sharing with athletes because it is considered “athletic financial assistance.”

But on Wednesday, U.S. Department of Education acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor issued a press release that dictated “Title IX says nothing about how revenue-generating athletics programs should allocate compensation among student-athletes.”

Staley became the highest-paid coach in women’s basketball in mid-January when she agreed to a new $25.25 million contract extension that will pay her $4 million annually through 2029-30.

Staley praised new South Carolina athletic director Jeremiah Donati’s support after her contract was finalized.

“I think our AD is figuring out what moves on this campus, what sport moves on this campus,” Staley said. “We’re one of them, without a doubt, and I hope at the end of the day, he takes that in high consideration. He was first introduced at one of our games in a full house. So if that’s not an indicator of where our team can be, representative of where our sport can go on this campus, we’ll have to wait and see.”