Athletic Compensation for Women Too? Title IX Implications of Northwestern and O'Bannon

46 Pages Posted: 31 May 2015 Last revised: 4 Nov 2016

See all articles by Erin Buzuvis

Erin Buzuvis

Western New England University School of Law

Date Written: 2015

Abstract

The NCAA has been relying on Title IX requirements to defend its polices prohibiting compensation for college athletics; it argues that paying athletes in revenue sports, coupled with the commensurate obligation under Title IX to pay female athletes, would be prohibitively expensive. As a response to the NCAA’s argument, the Author seeks to advance two positions: first, that Title IX would, as argued by the NCAA, require payment of female athletes using some measure of equality; and, second, that it is not Title IX that renders the prospect of athlete compensation cost prohibitive, but rather, the fact that college athletics departments seek the advantages of operating as both educational and commerce enterprises. Ultimately, the Author reframes the application of Title IX to athlete compensation by proposing two alternative outcomes: either college athletics departments could reform their programs by curtailing the ways in which they have become overly commercialized programs and thus avoid the application of antitrust and labor laws, or they could reform themselves by abandoning their connection to education and the subsidy that comes with it.

Keywords: Title IX, employment law, college sports, sex discrimination

Suggested Citation

Buzuvis, Erin, Athletic Compensation for Women Too? Title IX Implications of Northwestern and O'Bannon (2015). Journal of College and University Law, Vol. 41, p. 297, 2015, Western New England University School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 15-9, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2611345

Erin Buzuvis (Contact Author)

Western New England University School of Law ( email )

1215 Wilbraham Road
Springfield, MA 01119
United States

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