The voting bloc that swung to the Republican side last November to give the GOP control of the White House and Congress was men under 30, who have traditionally voted Democrat by large majorities. They shifted by double-digits from Biden in 2020 to Trump and Republicans in 2024.
But congressional Republicans are doing nothing for young men to retain their support, and they may return to the Democrat Party if this inattention by the GOP continues. For younger men and for fathers who have sons in high school, a top issue is an opportunity to compete in college sports.
Trump issued an executive order last Thursday to warn colleges against eliminating more sports teams in non-revenue, or Olympic, sports. Observing that “the future of college sports is under unprecedented threat,” Trump ordered the protection of college sports that are not money-makers for colleges, which is virtually every sport except football and basketball.
Bipartisan legislation to save college sports, called the SCORE Act, will be debated in the House when it returns after the August recess. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Cory Booker, D-N.J., have also teamed up from opposite sides of the aisle in the Senate.
But it is former President Bill Clinton’s Department of Education regulation that makes men’s college sports an endangered species on the verge of extinction. Called the “proportionality test,” it requires that colleges eliminate men’s sports teams until the proportion of men in competitive sports at a college does not exceed the overall percentage of men enrolled in academic classes there.
This quota fails to recognize that an opportunity to play sports is what men look for in deciding whether to go to college, in contrast with the typical reasons why women make that decision. Women’s overall enrollment has increased to 60% at many colleges, so the quota forces cutting men’s teams down to only 40% of sports competitors.
[…]Young men elected Republicans last November, and the GOP should help those who took them to the dance in D.C.
— Andy Schlafly, July 31 WorldNetDaily column