Just when everyone thought they had a grasp on what the college athletics model would look like going forward, the U.S. Department of Education stepped in and dropped a nuclear bomb on the table.
In one of the biggest plot twists of the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) era, the Department of Education published a memo on Thursday providing guidance regarding NIL compensation and compliance under Title IX law.
“When a school provides athletic financial assistance in forms other than scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of a student-athletes’s NIL, such assistance also must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes,” the memo states, via ESPN’s Paula Lavigne and Dan Murphy.
Established during the Nixon administration in 1972, Title IX is a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding.
Now, the cornerstone of gender equity in education will dramatically shake up the way that college athletics is permitted to distribute NIL funds to its student-athletes.
Last year, the NCAA and its power conferences agreed that each school could share up to $20.5 million in direct payments to their respective athletes via NIL. This agreement, which is part of a larger pending antitrust settlement, was on track to begin this summer.
If this new guidance is carried over after inauguration day, the plans and strategies that those schools had in place will ultimately be foiled.
There have been numerous cases of athletic departments publicly admitting that the vast majority of their funds would go to revenue-generating sports—primarily football and men’s basketball.
However, the Dept. of Education’s memo states that these funds fall under the umbrella of “athletic financial assistance,” making them subject to Title IX laws—and therefore required to be shared proportionally between male and female athletes.
“When a school provides athletic financial assistance in forms other than scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of a student-athletes’s NIL, such assistance also must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes,” the memo said.
While Title IX’s reach is further than just athletics, it does impact the playing field in a major way, too. One of the biggest impacts is that schools are required to provide equal opportunities for men and women to play varsity sports, proportional to the student body’s gender makeup. Additionally, the law requires that schools provide financial assistance in proportion to the number of male and female student-athletes.
So, if 50% of a school’s athletes are female, then 50% of the school’s financial aid must go toward women’s sports.
ESPN’s report on that matter shared this quote from attorney Arthur Bryant, who is currently working a Title IX lawsuit against the University of Oregon.
“I’d be astonished if schools that have announced they are planning something other than proportional distribution continue with those plans,” said Bryant. “They would be knowingly and intentionally planning to violate the law.”
With this new guidance, a new administration in the White House, and a still-pending settlement hearing in the coming months, there’s no telling what the landscape of college athletics will look like a year from now. The only guarantee is that it will look a hell of a lot different than anyone thought.
*For students trying to keep up with these evolving policies while managing coursework, an online essay writer can be a helpful tool to stay on top of academic responsibilities.*
