Harvard, Yale, Ivy League Defend Sports Scholarship Ban in Court

The Ivy League and its eight elite universities moved to end litigation challenging their ban on athletic scholarships, arguing that a current and former student overreached by attacking the policy on antitrust grounds.

The conference and schools filed a motion Monday seeking to dismiss the proposed class action, which accuses them of an illegal wage-fixing pact that sets athlete compensation at $0. The students leading the case are looking to build on the momentum of a recent US Supreme Court ruling and other lower court decisions that have upended a college sports economy built on the foundation of mandatory amateurism.

The lawsuit—filed in March in the US District Court for the District of Connecticut—is the latest in a growing wave of litigation prompted by the high court’s unanimous 2021 decision striking down some of the NCAA’s scholarship caps and other restrictions on student-athlete compensation.

That ruling paved the way for various forms of pay, particularly sponsorship deals letting athletes capitalize on their name, image, and likeness rights. Lower courts have begun grappling with a host of novel legal issues, such as the extent to which wage laws and other workplace protections may apply.

The Ivy League denied any wrongdoing when the suit against it was filed. In their motion to have the case thrown out, the conference and schools say the allegations reflect a misguided effort to impose a one-size fits all approach that would destroy part of what makes them special.

Letting conferences set their own rules—an approach the Supreme Court appeared to endorse—leads to “an expansion of consumer choice” for athletes who can pick among hundreds of colleges “based on the balance of athletics and academics that each student prefers,” according to the court filing.

The lawsuit would “misuse the antitrust laws” to force changes to “the nature of Ivy League athletics,” the motion says.

‘Common Sense and Precedent’

According to the universities, the antitrust claims are implausible even on their own terms. The suit itself points out that they’re the only eight Division I schools without athletic scholarships out of more than 350, including other elite colleges that are reasonable substitutes for students seeking sports scholarships, the motion says.

“High-achieving student-athletes consider, and many attend, numerous other academically and athletically rigorous schools,” according to the court filing. “Common sense and precedent confirm that a single athletic conference in the NCAA is not an antitrust market.”

Nor do the rules of a sports league qualify as “one of the exceedingly rare agreements so obviously anticompetitive that it is per se illegal” regardless of the economic details, the schools say.

In addition to Harvard, Yale, and the Ivy League, the lawsuit targets Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Darmouth, Penn, and Princeton. Their lead attorney, Seth Waxman, is a former US Solicitor General with decades of experience arguing cases before the Supreme Court and other high-level appellate tribunals.

The conference is represented by Covington & Burling LLP. Brown is represented by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. Columbia is represented by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Cornell is represented by King & Spalding LLP. Dartmouth is represented by Jenner & Block LLP. Harvard is represented by Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Penn is represented by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP. Princeton is represented by Crowell & Moring LLP. Yale is represented by Hogan Lovells US LLP. Finn Dixon & Herling LLP is also listed as counsel “for defendants.”

The current and former Brown University basketball players leading the case—Grace Kirk and Tamenang Choh, respectively—are represented by Zeisler & Zeisler PC, Berger Montague PC, and Freedman Normand Friedland LLP.

The case is Choh v. Brown Univ., D. Conn., No. 230-cv-305, motion to dismiss filed 5/15/23.