rbg
Postdoc
Posts: 3054
Reg: 10-20-14
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10-01-21 12:46 PM - Post#326864
In response to Stuart Suss
Today's Yale Daily News has an article on the letter from Alan Cotler and Robert Litan.
- “All Ivy schools should compete for the students’ services and unique skills, just as the reasoning of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alston has recognized,†the letter reads. “This means terminating the Ivy League’s policy that prevents this outcome.â€
The Ivy League has had a congressional exemption from antitrust law since 1994, allowing Ancient Eight schools to unilaterally ban merit-based scholarships. But that exemption is up for congressional review and renewal for the fourth time in September 2022. The implications extend beyond the athletic fields, with the potential for merit-based scholarships on academic grounds as well. -
- The immediate, narrow conclusion of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alston was outlined by law professor George Priest ’69 in an essay published in the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law this year. Priest wrote that “through antitrust litigation, the Supreme Court’s ruling in NCAA v. Alston forced the NCAA to allow universities to provide greater compensation to their most productive athletes, such as scholarships for graduate study, payment for tutors.â€
Priest, as well as Cotler and Litan, note that the most significant aspect of the Alston ruling is the concurring opinion by Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90, which reveals the impact the decision could have on Ivy League athletics.
“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,†Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different.†-
- According to Priest, the agreement by Ivy League universities is “now such an obvious violation†of antitrust law.
“If this happened in any other industry, the leaders of the industry who agree to this will go to jail,†Priest said. “So let’s say [all] restaurants in New Haven agreed ‘We don’t want to pay our chefs [and] we’re going to have amateur chefs only,’ they go to jail.â€
However, Priest says that an expiration of the exemption will not compel Ivy League members to give athletic scholarships. But it may make illegal a group in which all members agree not to pay their athletes, which the Ivy League currently is. -
- For Priest, there could be significant implications if just one of the Ancient Eight institutions were to begin offering merit-based scholarships.
“[If] Yale keeps its schedule of playing against these other teams, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, Penn, Columbia, they can still do that. But if Harvard is paying for its athletes, [and Yale isn’t], Yale’s just gonna keep losing,†Priest said. “And that’s why I think it’s going to be ultimately fatal for the Ivy League.†-
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