E&W Blog

As we enter a new era of college sports in which athletes can receive compensation for their name, image, and likeness (NIL), the Committee is looking at ways to protect the tradition of allowing student-athletes to pursue an education while playing a sport they love. 
 
The hearing started off with Subcommittee Chairman Rick Allen (R-GA) discussing how the Biden administration’s efforts to classify college athletes as employees would have had a devastating impact on college athletics. 

“The increased costs of unionization and administrative headaches would have threatened the viability of many college athletic programs, including many women’s sports and small-school athletic programs, resulting in fewer teams, fewer scholarships, and fewer opportunities for young people,” Rep. Allen explained. "Additionally, employee status would have triggered unintended consequences for student-athletes, and could have led to them receiving fewer benefits, having scholarships revoked for poor performance, and having scholarships taxed by the IRS.”

Witnesses also echoed the negative effect classifying student-athletes as employees would have on both the tradition of college sports and students. 
 
In an exchange with Rep. Allen, Ms. Jacqie McWilliams Parker, Commissioner of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, said, “For our HBCUs and our smaller institutions I’m highly concerned about employment because the fact of the matter is that these institutions were built in this country to give us an education. Athletics is an opportunity to allow our students to engage way beyond just getting their degree. Making them employees or changing that status really changes the opportunities that we get to create at our institutions and our smaller schools being able to give them the resources they need for academic support, travel, uniforms, and all those things that are important and necessary.” 
 
Full Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) questioned the notion that because college sports creates significant revenue, athletes should therefore be classified as employees. 
 
Mr. Daniel Nash, a shareholder with Littler, stated, “The law has been very clear that the amount of revenue that an organization receives is not a factor in determining whether someone is or is not an employee. If it were, businesses that lose money could claim that they shouldn’t have to pay their employees. What matters – and the Supreme Court has made this clear many times – is that someone meets the test of the definition of a common law employee. Student-athletes for decades have been recognized as not meeting that test. The fact that revenue has increased in sports like football or basketball shouldn’t be a basis for changing that law.” 
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) asked Ms. Morgyn Wynne, a former softball student-athlete for Oklahoma State University, about her academic experience as a college athlete. “My academic experience was certainly a high point of my career,” said Ms. Wynne. “I studied strategic communications in undergrad and during that time my coach was also very supportive of joining extracurricular clubs, so I had the ability to join an advertising club. My coaches took academics very seriously. When playing on the road, we had study halls on the road with each other. Our academic advisors would also travel with us to make sure we had the most adequate resources at all times.” 
 
Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) highlighted her bill, the Protecting Student Athletes’ Economic Freedom Act, legislation that clarifies that a student-athlete is not an employee of a college. In a discussion about the bill’s benefits, Rep. McClain asked Ms. McWilliams Parker what her response would be to critics who say, “we have to protect student-athletes.”

“I don’t know why we think we aren’t protecting them already,” said Ms. McWilliams Parker. “I work in college athletics; my job every day is to protect student-athletes and give them the best opportunity to compete in championships and make sure that we have the staffing and support they need.”
 
Rep. Bob Onder (R-MO) asked whether student-athletics should mirror professional sports like many supporters of employee classification argue. “I don’t think student-athletes at the college level are remotely equivalent to professional athletes,” Mr. Nash replied. “Professional athletes are not required or admitted as students under academic standard at a university. Their sole focus is to play their sport.” 
 
Ms. Wynne said it best, “Employment status will shift the freedom of student-athletes to explore academic interests [and] transfer capabilities, or just playing for the love of the game and replace that with legal contracts, performance pressures, and financial decisions.”

Bottom line: College athletics historically have been treated as an extracurricular activity and part of a student’s educational experience, not a job. Education and Workforce Republicans are committed to safeguarding the many opportunities that college athletics provide students rather than allowing bureaucracy to damage this tradition.