Only about .007% of athletes who complete in NCAA sports are transgender. However, this group has attracted an outsized amount of social, media, regulatory and now litigant, attention. Under National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules dating to January 2022, transgender female athletes may compete in women’s events if the national governing body for the specific sport allows transgender athletes to compete.
As part of the NCAA’s efforts to promote diversity and gender equity in intercollegiate athletics, NCAA Bylaw 20.2.4.3 requires that all Division I athletic departments perform a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) assessment and file an attestation of completion of the review with the NCAA by November 3, 2023.
In the past six months, the federal courts have addressed some novel issues about what is a “sport” under Title IX, as well as questions of standing, retaliation, financial aid, class certification and Title IX’s equitable opportunities and benefits requirements. These cases reflect that the landscape of Title IX continues to change and requires careful attention to ensure that your school or institution does not inadvertently drift into Title IX violation.
Although transgender athletes have been competing for many years – recall Renee Richards playing professional women’s tennis in the 1970’s – the participation of trans-female athletes has recently resurfaced as a sensational headline topic. The Trump and Biden administrations took polar opposite positions and federal courts have issued conflicting rulings on this issue, which appears headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In February 2023, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a resource to the higher education community reiterating some of the core concepts it uses to evaluate whether institutions are providing equal athletic opportunities consistent with Title IX. For colleges and universities, this new resource should serve as a not-so-subtle prompt to review their programs for compliance with applicable standards.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel has issued a complaint against the University of Southern California (USC), the Pac-12 Conference and the NCAA claiming that certain USC student-athletes are employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and that the conference and the NCAA, along with the university, can be held jointly responsible employers for the treatment of those students under the law. This NLRB litigation portends fundamental consequences for private college and university athletic programs.
In its Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia ruling in June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition on “sex” discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 encompasses discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity. The Bostock ruling raised, but did not decide, the question of whether or not other federal sex discrimination laws, such as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Fair Housing Act, might also inherently prohibit LGBTQ+ discrimination. While the Bostock ruling applies only to Title VII claims, the Biden administration has announced that federal agencies will apply Bostock’s definition of “sex” to other federal civil rights laws. On the day he was inaugurated, Jan. 20, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order stating that federal sex discrimination laws besides Title VII – including Title IX and the Fair Housing Act – should be interpreted as prohibiting gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination. Subsequently, in June 2021, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued guidance that Title IX prohibits LGBTQ+ discrimination. In addition, in February 2021, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it would enforce the sex discrimination provisions of the Fair Housing Act as encompassing LGBTQ+ discrimination.
The General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board), who has authority for setting prosecutorial policy for the NLRB, issued a General Counsel Memorandum (GC Memo) today, reversing the prior Board General Counsel’s position and asserting the employee status of certain student athletes at private educational institutions. Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo conveyed her enforcement position in a memorandum to the Board’s Regional Directors. Because non-unionized employees have rights under the federal labor law, the immediate impact will be that the NLRB’s enforcement arm will be processing complaints related to allegations of adverse treatment of certain student athletes for all variety of internal complaints against private institutions.
One month has passed since the NCAA Board of Directors adopted emergency legislation permitting student-athletes to monetize their name, image and likeness (NIL) without violating the long-standing amateurism requirements of NCAA Bylaw 12. Specifically, the NCAA: (1) acknowledged that a state law/executive order regarding NIL supersedes NCAA rules; and (2) provided blanket NIL coverage to student-athletes located in states that do not have a state law/executive order in place. This major change in NCAA legislation is charting new pathways for how student-athletes must be monitored by their institutions to avoid ineligibility. The creation of an internal institutional policy is one way to help organize and manage this new process.
On June 21, 2021, in an opinion providing a very interesting historical overview of collegiate athletics going back to the 19th century and the founding of what is now the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in the NCAA v. Alston case. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s injunction of NCAA rules that restrict education-related benefits to Division I basketball and bowl subdivision football student-athletes.
The Supreme Court of the United States has denied both the NCAA’s and plaintiffs’ petitions for certiorari in the O’Bannon case. The parties had petitioned for review of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision issued in September 2015.
In that decision, the Ninth Circuit sided with the NCAA by vacating that portion of the District Court’s decision that would have required the NCAA to allow member institutions to pay limited deferred compensation to student-athletes for the use of their names, images and likenesses. At the same time, the Ninth Circuit also partly favored plaintiffs by upholding that part of the District Court’s ruling that enjoined the NCAA from enforcing its rules precluding member institutions from providing athletic scholarships up to the full cost of attendance.
The Supreme Court’s denial, which signifies only that it declined to review the case and not that it agreed with the Ninth Circuit’s decision, means that the Ninth Circuit’s decision will stand unchanged.
On March 15, 2016, plaintiffs in the O’Bannon case sought U.S. Supreme Court review of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision issued in September 2015. In that decision, the Ninth Circuit sided with the NCAA by vacating that portion of the District Court’s ruling that would have required the NCAA to allow member institutions to pay limited deferred compensation to student-athletes for the use of their names, images and likenesses. The Ninth Circuit’s decision did not wholly favor the NCAA, however, as it also upheld that part of the District Court’s ruling that enjoined the NCAA from enforcing its rules precluding member institutions from providing athletic scholarships up to the full cost of attendance. Reports indicate that the NCAA had earlier requested an extension of time to file its own petition to seek U.S. Supreme Court review and that it continues to consider this option following the O’Bannon plaintiffs’ request.
