United States District of Connecticut Judge Alvin Thompson, a Princeton and Yale Law School graduate, handed a significant victory to the Ivy League Thursday.
Thompson granted an Ivy League motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two former Brown basketball players alleges that the Ivy League not offering athletic scholarships violates the Sherman Antitrust Act by price-fixing, raising the net price of education that Ivy athletes pay and suppressing compensation for the athletic services they provide Ivy schools.
Thompson found it “impossible to evaluate” whether Tamenang Choh and Grace Kirk plausibly accused the Ivies of having the “market power” needed to withhold athletic scholarships and other athletics-based aid without losing student-athletes to “other excellent schools in these alternative markets.”
Deficiencies in the complaint were “substantive in nature” and could not be overcome by an attempt to “amend” them, Thompson ruled.
Look for the decision to be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as it appears flawed on three key points.
First, the judge found that the Ivy market was not a relevant market for antitrust analysis. But that determination is in essence a factual one not to be determined at the motion to dismiss stage, where all facts are deemed to be true and uncontroverted.
Next, the judge hung his hat on the alleged unique Ivy experience in which athletes and non-athletes are treated the same, but there was no factual underpinning to make such a finding.
Lastly, Thompson found that the statute of limitations had passed as a matter of law, but the Ivy League may have tolled the statute by reaffirming its policies on an annual basis. That’s a legal issue to eye in the event of an appeal.
It is safe to say that we have not heard the last from this case. It will probably take an appellate court to opine on the dismissal.
My feeling on the position that the Ivy League does not prioritize athletics is that they do not bend their admission standards for athletes unlike other selective schools such as: Southern Cal and University of Miami (FL). The academic index guards against this type of behavior. Where I differ from the Ivy League’s position is that in terms of practice demands they are no different from any other D 1 Program (Other than prohibitions on Summer Basketball practice) and that outside the league they are competing against athletes on athletic scholarships. If I were a coach I would recruit those athletes whose parents were willing to “full-pay” or those who would qualify for hefty need-based financial aid. In other words the financial aid burden falls heavily on upper middle class families in my view. Time for the Ivies to join the rest of the D 1 college athletic world.