The HBCU athletic commissioners of the SIAC, CIAA, SWAC, and MEAC have written a letter to Congress addressing the future of HBCU athletics amid significant changes in the sports landscape, per reporting by HBCU Gameday. The letter highlights critical issues such as conference realignment, the growing NIL space, revenue-sharing debates, and the potential classification of college athletes as university employees. They urged the Congressional Black Caucus to include HBCUs in these conversations and take their perspectives into account.
The letter addressed to the Congressional Black Caucus is below:
“Dear Chairwoman Clarke & Members of the Congressional Black Caucus: The Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), and Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), represent Historically Black Colleges & Universities within Divisions’ I and II of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As members of the NCAA, our four Conferences include 48 institutions spanning nearly twenty states. We serve 15,000 student athletes, and bring together millions of HBCU alumni, fans and communities in celebration of our rich history and traditions.
While there have been historic changes recently in collegiate sports to support student-athletes overall, opportunities for our predominantly Black students at our institutions are at risk. Pending regulatory decisions and litigation threaten to change the face of college sports devoid of our input and, more importantly, without the voices of our student athletes, administrators and us as commissioners leading our conferences being considered. To ensure that college sports broadly – and HBCU sports especially – can continue to thrive, it’s essential that Congress allow for consistent and nimble national governance and affirm that student-athletes are not designated as employees of their universities.
There continues to be a growing patchwork of state laws impacting college sports and creating disparities and confusion among our prospective and current student-athletes. The disparate laws and increasing court decisions have made it difficult for conferences like ours to continue to provide developmental and competition opportunities for member institutions and student-athletes.
Retention is also a challenge within our HBCU student-athlete population due to increasing differences in state laws and legal activity that have all but eliminated a level playing field. At the same time, we are witnessing ongoing efforts to classify student-athletes as employees. Like the majority of our mid-major and Division II peers, most HBCUs do not generate significant revenue and rely heavily on school appropriated funds and donations. Classifying student-athletes as employees would have a devastating impact on our athletic programs and schools, and in some cases lead to the elimination of intercollegiate athletics.
Amid these looming outside threats, there has also been significant internal transformation during President Charlie Baker’s first two years leading the NCAA. Recent initiatives and enhancements including membership funded sports injury health coverage for all college athletes for up to two years after graduation, student-athletes’ access to mental health services, financial literacy training, health and well-being benefits, scholarship protections, and degree completion funding are bettering the student athlete experience.
While we are working tirelessly to advocate for and protect all that we have accomplished with our HBCU campuses, we need your support and understanding in the value of affirming that student-athletes are not employees of their universities and in pre-empting state law and providing limited safe harbor protections to create clear and fair playing fields for HBCU student-athletes. Over the past few years we have made efforts to meet with members of Congress and the Congressional Black Caucus to share the HBCU sports community’s views regarding the passage of federal legislation for intercollegiate athletics.
We continue to stand ready to engage as resources and as part of the dialogue on the important issues impacting HBCU intercollegiate athletics. We would like to invite Chair Clarke and/or members of her leadership team to discuss the important role the Congressional Black Caucus can play in protecting future opportunities for HBCU schools and student-athletes. Please let us know if there is a time in February or March that would be convenient to meet in-person or virtually. Thank you again for your consideration and for your continued support of HBCU communities.”
The new letter comes after the four HBCU commissioners visited Capitol Hill in 2023 and also penned an op-ed in The Hill that spoke against the classification of college athletes as employees.
“At this very moment, courts and regulatory agencies are weighing decisions that could potentially reclassify student-athletes as employees of their universities, regardless of the economics associated with the sport they play or the university at which they play it,” the 2023 op-ed stated. “If those types of legal rulings were to advance, the vast majority of college athletic departments will face steep reductions in the number of athletic programs they can afford to operate. No one would feel these impacts more drastically than HBCUs. For us, it would be untenable.”
The commissioners laid out the framework of how D2 & FCS programs make money and how legislation passed that isn’t cognizant of its effects on less-resourced institutions could prove costly, ending their op-ed by advocating for solutions that would make sure HBCUs aren’t left behind the curve in future legislation concerning NIL and the economics of college sports such as:
- National oversight of NIL rights that could supersede state legislation when necessary
- Creating a special status for student-athletes so they aren’t classified as employees of their colleges/universities
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