Department of Education: Title IX Applies to Student-Athlete Payments

A U.S. Department of Education memo circulated Thursday may force some schools to reconsider how they plan to distribute direct payments to their men's and women's sports participants.

As reported by The Associated Press, the nine-page memo from the department’s Office for Civil Rights said NIL money that goes to athletes should be treated the same as athletic financial aid — i.e., scholarships. It’s a position that, if it remains in place after President-elect Donald Trump takes office, could upend plans that many schools are making for next school year.

Under terms of the House v. NCAA settlement, a game-changing legal agreement that’s expected to be approved this spring, universities will be able to pay athletes directly under a revenue-sharing plan that would see the biggest schools distribute around $20.5 million each to athletes.

According to AP writers Eddie Pells and Cheyanne Mumphrey, many schools have publicly stated that the majority of that money would go to football and men’s basketball players, which, according to the guidance, would be in violation of Title IX.

“When a school provides athletic financial assistance in forms other than scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of a student-athlete’s NIL, such assistance also must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes,” the memo said.

NCAA board chair Linda Livingstone said the association doesn’t give guidance to schools about Title IX compliance.

“We’re going to have to get back to our schools and see what the implications are,” said Livingstone, president of Baylor University.

The memo was less clear on how money from third-party collectives that are closely affiliated with the schools will be treated. It said those payments, which are the norm but were expected to be reduced under the new rules, were not considered financial assistance, Pells and Mumphrey reported.

But, the guidance said, “it is possible that NIL agreements between student-athletes and third parties will create similar disparities and therefore trigger a school’s Title IX obligations.”

University of Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman, who serves as the chair of the NCAA Division I Council, said “the world has changed over and over again just in the last six months.”

“We’ve been building plans on top of plans for some time now, and this is the most recent example of where we’re going to take the guidance under advisement and figure out what, if any, changes we have to make to the strategies we’ve developed,” he said, as reported by the AP.