Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a bipartisan coalition of 18 attorneys general in urging Congress to pass the NCAA Accountability Act of 2023. If signed into law, this legislation would ensure that the NCAA provides transparent due process in its investigations and create fairness for student-athletes, coaches, and institutions. Additionally, it would establish a meaningful enforcement mechanism by authorizing the United States Department of Justice to take certain legal action, including fines or removal, against the NCAA or individuals who violate the law.
“The NCAA exercises tremendous power over the opportunities available to college athletes in our states, and there is currently no effective check on the organization’s conduct if it behaves in an arbitrary or inconsistent manner,” Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in the letter, adding that the Act would change that and “protect our college athletes and our institutes of higher education.”
This bipartisan effort provides a real solution to a meaningful problem in higher education–the NCCA’s unchecked concentration of power–which leaves our student-athletes vulnerable to mistreatment, distracts both students and universities from their educational priorities, and results in unequal treatment that can deprive students, coaches, and institutions of a fair process.
The NCAA’s mistreatment of universities and individuals via lengthy, opaque, and arbitrary investigations have become a cornerstone of its investigations. Given the economic powerhouse that college sports have become, such NCAA investigations can harm not only the level of competition in respective sports but damage the financial well-being of higher institutions and the surrounding areas. Additionally, those investigations effectively deprive student-athletes of Name, Image, and Likeness [NIL] opportunities.
This Act would end that by mandating a legal framework to constrain the worst potential abuses of the NCAA’s authority.
Tennessee led the following in sending this letter to Congress: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Utah.
Original source can be found here.