Thirteen years ago, satire news site The Onion aired a fake sports talk show announcing that March Madness would now allow four-thousand college basketball teams to compete. “All schools deserve to compete,” said the fake announcers: “This will take March Madness all the way into June!” 

During this year’s March Madness tournament, the NCAA, the governing body of collegiate athletics, has been running not-fake commercials openly patting themselves on the back for all the opportunities created for women. One ad celebrated the NCAA’s embrace of Title IX, which gave female athletes the opportunity to compete in female-only sports leagues, along with greater access to scholarships and education. The self-congratulations ring a bit hollow since, just two weeks ago, the NCAA awarded a women’s swimming championship to a man.  

The NCAA faces a real choice: Either acknowledge the real, consequential differences between men and women and why they are inherently relevant to physical competition or become the organizing body that takes opportunities from women. If they choose the latter, and become a satire of themselves, the women will be the ones who suffer.