Fixing or creating problems?

The mail will soon bring football season tickets for the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities. Forgotten by many was the National Labor Relations Board decision in March to permit college football players at Northwestern (a Big Ten Conference school) to organize a college players’ union and collectively bargain. While the initial ruling applied only to NU, its ripple effects will have colleges and universities across the nation on edge until the appeal of the ruling is decided in court.

Not Senator Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia), who introduced his SB 1362 in May to accomplish in PA a similar result. Among other things, his bill would:

• Treat scholarship athletes at affected schools as “employees” of the school with rights defined under the state’s Public Employees’ Relations Act (a.k.a. Act 195).
• Affect any school with media (television and radio) revenues of $10 million or more.
• Provide for medical treatment or premiums/deductibles for injuries sustained by student athletes at affected institutions, except for pre-existing conditions.
• Prohibit dropping student scholarships for injured athletes unable to perform due to injuries sustained in their athletic participation.
• Give students the right to sue their institution for use of likenesses (photographs, signatures) outside the athletic program.

This bill raises several public policy questions:

Why are scholarship athletes at large, revenue-generating institutions the only ones covered by this bill? Why not walk-ons? Why not the entire student body? Since many institutions in PA are Division III schools, do their athletes NOT deserve the same treatment? Where does “equal protection” under section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution come into play?

If students can be dropped from their health care coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, will this encourage greater scrutiny of athletes’ injury history in secondary sports? Where do federal HIPPA guidelines come into play here? Can an institution drop or deny a scholarship to an athlete who fails to disclose a pre-existing condition?

Will athletic scholarships now be subject to collective bargaining? Would this be done at a college collectively by all student-athletes, or by individual sports? Would collective bargaining apply only scholarship athletes? How will the provisions of federal Title IX impact the bargaining for sports programs?   What are the “inherent managerial rights” retained by the institutions or coaches under Section 702 of Act 195? How much extra will this cost a school to engage in labor negotiations with a new class of “employees”?

Dropping student-athletes for violations of team disciplinary rules, for poor academic performance or for criminal behavior is not directly addressed by the bill. Could student-athletes negotiate such infractions out of their athletic scholarship “contracts”?

Perhaps it is time to change how colleges treat student athletes, but is this the way forward?