Ohio attorney general Dave Yost announced Thursday that he, along with representatives from six other states, have filed a lawsuit against the NCAA that aims to challenges current transfer eligibility rules.
Specifically, Yost is seeking to allow student-athletes to transfer multiple times.
According to WKYC, the lawsuit challenges the NCAA's transfer rule "as an illegal restraint on college athletes’ ability to market their labor and control their education."
The NCAA currently requires all D-I athletes who transfer to wait a year before competing in games, unless they are able to obtain a waiver.
“The rule is riddled with so many exceptions that the NCAA cannot plausibly substantiate its prior justifications,” Yost said. “We're challenging it in order to restore fairness, competition and the autonomy of college athletes in their educational pursuits.”
As part of the multistate lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, the attorneys general are seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to keep the NCAA from enforcing the rule.
“The ‘AA’ in NCAA might as well stand for ‘arbitrary and atrocious,’” Yost said. “The transfer eligibility rule needlessly curtails the fundamental rights of college athletes.”
Yost is being joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Colorado, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia in the lawsuit.
