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A new government agency is embarking on a growing movement to consider athletes as employees.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will soon launch an investigation in what one legal expert describes as an “aggressive inquiry” into whether unpaid college athletes are discriminated against because they do not receive fair compensation. may start. The EEOC was recently referenced in an employment and civil rights complaint filed with the Department of Education in March by the National Collegiate Athletes Association (NCPA).

The complaint alleges that all 350 NCAA Division I schools violated the civil rights of black students by conspiring to limit compensation. The NCAA limits what schools can offer athletes in terms of scholarships and largely prohibits direct payments to players.

The athlete-employment debate has gained momentum over the past few years as revenue growth within the collegiate sports industry continues to expand in many ways, thanks in large part to men’s basketball and soccer. ‘s unexpected earnings saw the Big Ten sign a TV deal that could bring in $1.1 billion a year, and leaders just approved an expansion to the college football playoffs that could bring in $2 billion a year.

“It’s only a matter of time before college athletes are considered employees. That’s certainly one takeaway from this decision,” says NCPA Executive Director Ramogi Huma. “However, we believe that each department, including the Ministry of Education, must do its part when it comes to enforcing existing laws regarding the rights of college athletes and college students.”

In a letter sent to NCAA schools last week, Anamaria Roya, senior attorney for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, said the complaint was not under the agency’s jurisdiction and was referred to the EEOC’s San Francisco District Office. sports illustrated I obtained a copy of the letter through a public records request.

Michael Leroy, an Illinois law professor who has published extensively on labor policy, said the referral move means that complaints are “taken very seriously” and that college athletes is a “big deal” for some who have asked to be considered employees.

“It will trigger an aggressive investigation,” predicts LeRoy. “I expect the EEOC to accuse this as part of employment discrimination and the school to rely on its 116-year-old allegation that this was about amateur competition. It’s going to be another thorny problem.”

The EEOC receives up to 100,000 employment complaints annually and prosecutes about 500 of them, LeRoy said. The procedure begins with research and always leads to his EEOC requests for information from schools and athletes.

“It is somewhat important [the complaint] Mitt Winter, a Kansas City-based sports attorney who has handled NCAA-related litigation in the past, said. “Schools will have an opportunity to demonstrate that they are not discriminating against athletes.

The NCPA lawsuit, reported by SI in March, is part of an athlete’s rights movement that has resulted in sweeping changes to the archaic NCAA policies governing compensation and transfer policies. This is a move the NCPA filed in his February filing of unfair labor practices charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the NCAA office, the Pac-12 conference, and California schools USC and UCLA. It follows. The goal is to verify the employee status of a DI basketball player and his FBS football player. NLRB hearings are scheduled for this fall.

The EEOC complaint seeks to remove the cap on compensation, potentially opening up the possibility for athletes to receive additional payments from schools. In its complaint, the NCPA alleges that NCAA-wide compensation limits have a “different impact” on black college students because a high percentage of black students are also college athletes.

The letter points out that the EEOC implements Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers of 15 or more persons to be legally ineligible for their race, color, origin, gender identity, gender, or discriminating against employees and job applicants on the basis of religion. .

“That’s another way to say the Biden administration hasn’t let go of the issue of hiring athletes in colleges,” Leroy said. Given the facts, they will probably request information from schools about disparities.”

Many in college sports believe that the employment situation for college athletes will come at some point. EEOC represents one of four possible routes for it to occur. NLRB is another possibility. A Biden-appointed board general counsel has expressed openness to managing college athletes as employees. We are. A fourth route to an athlete’s employment status is Congress. Several bills could pave the way for schools to offer athletes collective bargaining rights and even revenue-sharing clauses.

Viewing college athletes as employees would have far-reaching implications for athletes and their colleges. Athletes could face federal taxation and be at risk of being fired by their new employer, the school. Schools may lose their Section 501(3)c designation, which affects the taxation of bond loans and charitable contributions. Tuition and public support could also disappear, experts say.

This is a complicated issue. One sports director said that like freight trains, college sports are being affected along with other changes that are rapidly changing the landscape of the industry.

The NCPA’s nine-page complaint outlines millions of dollars that basketball and football players are missing due to what it calls “unreasonable limitations on compensation.” The complaint provides estimates of the percentage of total earnings that athletes in each major sport will receive. 29.9% in women’s basketball, 8.9% in men’s basketball and 8.1% in soccer. Each female basketball player is denied $24,000 a year. Men’s players $164,000; football players $185,000, the complaint said.

“College athletes in predominantly white sports receive fair market compensation, whereas those in predominantly black sports [FBS football and men’s and women’s basketball] Don’t,” Huma told SI in Spring. “All college athletes should have the opportunity to receive a fair market reward. Colleges have little to spend on coach salaries and luxury facilities.”

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