Biden Makes Last-Ditch Pass at Interfering in College Sports
On President Joe Biden’s way out the door, his Education Department has thrown a wrench into plans for universities to pay student-athletes directly. The payments will almost certainly still happen, but instead of schools using the vast majority of the payments on athletes in big-revenue programs (i.e. football), the Education Department says under Title IX the payments must be “proportionate” between male and female athletes.
The news probably gave some college football coaches and administrators a small heart attack—would they be able to keep the promises they made to a star recruit about how much money he’d make?—until they realized this is far from settled law.
The idea that Title IX applies here comes from a fact sheet published by the department’s Office for Civil Rights. The incoming Trump administration’s Education Department staff can just as easily publish their own fact sheet that says otherwise (as predicted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas)). Even if the Trump administration leaves the issue alone, the fact sheet is not a formal regulation and didn’t go through any kind of rule-making procedure. It doesn’t carry the force of law and probably wouldn’t have much weight in court.
But the fact sheet still serves as a warning to college athletic departments: Next time there’s a Democrat in the White House, be ready for this possibility.
The fact sheet says payments must be “substantially proportionate to the number of students of each sex participating in interscholastic or intercollegiate athletics at that school.” Data vary, but the NCAA seems to have a slight m
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