NIL Guidance Overturned by Trump Administration, No Longer Forced to be Title IX Compliant
The Trump administration has thrown in another shakeup to the world of college sports.
A week after banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, Trump’s Department of Education has repealed the guidance set forth by the Biden administration that Name, Image and Likeness compensation would be subject to Title IX compliance, according to a press release sent by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) on Wednesday.
“Enacted over 50 years ago, Title IX says nothing about how revenue-generating athletics programs should allocate compensation among student athletes,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a press release. “The claim that Title IX forces schools and colleges to distribute student-athlete revenues proportionately based on gender equity considerations is sweeping and would require clear legal authority to support it. That does not exist. Accordingly, the Biden NIL guidance is rescinded.”
The original guidance forced schools that receive federal funding to treat NIL compensation as “athletic financial assistance” and needed to be distributed equitably between men’s and women’s programs – not equally.
That immediately changed where schools were investing the most money.
The OCR says the previous guidance placed an “undue burden” on schools without legal ground.
According to the NCAA, 77% of NIL revenue sharing was invested in football prior to Biden’s guidance, and will likely return to a similar figure.
“The NIL guidance, rammed through by the Biden Administration in its final days, is overly burdensome, profoundly unfair, and it goes well beyond what agency guidance is intended to achieve,” the release said. “Without a credible legal justification, the Biden Administration claimed that NIL agreements between schools and student athletes are akin to financial aid and must, therefore, be proportionately distributed between male and female athletes under Title IX.”
