Overview

• U.S. District Judge Tiffany Johnson in Atlanta partially denied the NCAA’s bid to toss the case, keeping the Title IX claim alive.
• The court dismissed Georgia state defendants and the Georgia Tech Athletic Association, and it threw out the plaintiffs’ Section 1983 state‑action and bodily‑privacy claims against the NCAA.
• The surviving claim turns on whether NCAA concussion research was funded directly or indirectly by the Department of Defense, a possibility the judge found plausibly alleged.
• The NCAA must file its answer by Oct. 9, 2025, with 90 days of limited discovery set through Jan. 7, 2026 and potential dispositive briefing due in early February.
• Riley Gaines and 18 other current and former collegiate athletes filed the suit over NCAA policies that allowed transgender women to compete in women’s events, citing the 2022 championships at Georgia Tech.