Tag: athletics

  • Creighton Receives $100M Gift for Athletics Facilities

    Creighton Receives $100M Gift for Athletics Facilities

    Creighton University has received a $100 million gift from the Heider Family Foundation to launch a nearly $300 million campaign for a sprawling recreational and athletic development on the east side of the Omaha campus.

    Creighton’s Fly Together plan will establish or upgrade athletic facilities and outdoor spaces covering 12 blocks and roughly 700,000 square feet. It includes a new student fitness center, a pedestrian walkway connecting the private Jesuit campus to a downtown business district and a new sports performance center for Creighton’s student athletes.

    “Fly Together will serve students and student-athletes, but importantly, it will serve the Omaha community itself,” said Scott Heider, a university trustee as well as a trustee of the Heider Family Foundation, which was established by his parents, Charles and Mary.

    “We are incredibly grateful to the Heider family and the additional donors who are making this moment possible,” said Creighton president Daniel Hendrickson. “This gift … benefits everyone. It enhances student life, intramurals, premier club sports and intercollegiate athletics. It also strengthens Creighton’s connection to downtown and the broader Omaha community.”

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  • Energy Department withdraws controversial Title IX athletics rule

    Energy Department withdraws controversial Title IX athletics rule

    The U.S. Department of Energy canceled plans to issue a rule that would have removed a regulatory requirement for colleges and schools receiving funding from the agency. The requirement in question is meant to level the playing field between women and men in athletics. 

    The Energy Department’s rule would have no longer required colleges and schools receiving Energy Department funding to provide women or girls a chance to try out for contactless men’s or boys’ sports teams in cases where no equivalent sports team exists for them.

    Under current requirements, for example, girls must be allowed to try out for spots on the boys’ baseball team if there is no girls’ softball team. 

    In May, the Trump administration quietly proposed rescinding this requirement, along with a handful of other regulatory changes, by issuing a “direct final rule.” That process is usually reserved for uncontroversial regulations that are not expected to receive pushback, allowing an agency to issue new policies without incorporating changes based on public feedback. 

    On Sept. 10, however, the Energy Department said it was withdrawing the proposed change entirely after it received over 21,000 comments — many of them opposing the changes. The rescission came after the administration initially delayed the rule’s July 14 effective date until Sept. 12 amid significant pushback. 

    The withdrawal was celebrated by Title IX civil rights advocates, who worried the rule would reverse progress for girls and women in sports.

    However, a handful of other changes remain — albeit delayed — on the Energy Department’s docket that would impact colleges and schools receiving the agency’s grants. 

    For example, the agency still plans to move forward with a rule that would no longer require colleges and schools to prevent systemic racial discrimination that may result from seemingly neutral policies.The Energy Department has twice delayed that proposal’s effective date as a result of pushback, most recently to Dec. 9. 

    “Withdrawing the athletics rule shows that public pressure works, but continuing forward with the other rules shows this administration is still determined to chip away at opportunities for women, girls, and communities of color,” said Shiwali Patel, senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women’s Law Center, in a Sept. 9 statement. “Rescinding these other rules will deepen inequities in education and beyond.” 

    Patel and other education civil rights experts have expressed concern over the rules being issued through an expedited process. 

    The Energy Department did not comment in time for publication. However, it said in its notice of the proposal’s withdrawal that it is allowed to propose a rule in the future “that may be substantially identical or similar to those previously proposed.” 

    The administration’s decision to release the proposed rules through the Energy Department and attempt to push them through quickly marks a shift from typical K-12 policymaking, which is usually left to the U.S. Department of Education, some education experts said in July. 

    It could have been a trial run: Had the Energy Department’s proposals gone uncontested, it’s possible other agencies would have also tried setting education policy this way, they said. 

    “This is a paradigm shift on the part of how the federal government articulates and connects some of these tools to their education priorities,” Kenneth Wong, an education policy professor at Brown University, said in July, when the rules were originally set to take effect. “Basically every single school, in practically every single school district, has some grants from one of the many agencies in the federal government.” 

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  • Energy Department withdraws controversial Title IX athletics rule

    Energy Department withdraws controversial Title IX athletics rule

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    The U.S. Department of Energy canceled plans to issue a rule that would have removed a regulatory requirement for schools receiving funding from the agency. The requirement in question is meant to level the playing field between boys and girls in athletics. 

    The Energy Department’s rule would have no longer required schools receiving Energy Department funding to provide girls a chance to try out for contactless boys’ sports teams in cases where no equivalent sports team exists for them. Under current requirements, for example, girls must be allowed to try out for spots on the boys’ baseball team if there is no girls’ softball team. 

    In May, the Trump administration quietly proposed rescinding this requirement, along with a handful of other regulatory changes, by issuing a “direct final rule.” That process is usually reserved for uncontroversial regulations that are not expected to receive pushback, allowing an agency to issue new policies without incorporating changes based on public feedback. 

    On Sept. 10, however, the Energy Department said it was withdrawing the proposed change entirely after it received over 21,000 comments — many of them opposing the changes. The rescission came after the administration initially delayed the rule’s July 14 effective date until Sept. 12 amid significant pushback. 

    The withdrawal was celebrated by Title IX civil rights advocates, who worried the rule would reverse progress for girls and women in sports.

    However, a handful of other changes remain — albeit delayed — on the Energy Department’s docket that would impact schools receiving the agency’s grants. 

    For example, the agency still plans to move forward with a rule that would no longer require schools to prevent systemic racial discrimination that may result from seemingly neutral policies.The Energy Department has twice delayed that proposal’s effective date as a result of pushback, most recently to Dec. 9. 

    “Withdrawing the athletics rule shows that public pressure works, but continuing forward with the other rules shows this administration is still determined to chip away at opportunities for women, girls, and communities of color,” said Shiwali Patel, senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women’s Law Center, in a Sept. 9 statement. “Rescinding these other rules will deepen inequities in education and beyond.” 

    Patel and other education civil rights experts have expressed concern over the rules being issued through an expedited process. 

    The Energy Department did not comment in time for publication. However, it said in its notice of the proposal’s withdrawal that it is allowed to propose a rule in the future “that may be substantially identical or similar to those previously proposed.” 

    The administration’s decision to release the proposed rules through the Energy Department and attempt to push them through quickly marks a shift from typical K-12 policymaking, which is usually left to the U.S. Department of Education, some education experts said in July. 

    It could have been a trial run: Had the Energy Department’s proposals gone uncontested, it’s possible other agencies would have also tried setting education policy this way, they said. 

    “This is a paradigm shift on the part of how the federal government articulates and connects some of these tools to their education priorities,” Kenneth Wong, an education policy professor at Brown University, said in July, when the rules were originally set to take effect. “Basically every single school, in practically every single school district, has some grants from one of the many agencies in the federal government.” 

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  • College Athletics Enters Uncharted Territory July 1

    College Athletics Enters Uncharted Territory July 1

    After years of court battles, a federal judge ushered in a new era for college athletics earlier this month when she approved a settlement in the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit, effectively ending the century-old model of student athletes as amateurs.

    Now students will be able to earn money for their athletic performance at colleges that opt in to the practice known as revenue-sharing, in which institutions share with players the money made off their teams. Former Division I athletes from the recent past will also share a $2.8 billion settlement to compensate for the financial opportunities they were denied due to now-defunct NCAA rules that prevented them from cashing in on name, image, and likeness deals.

    Although the NCAA status quo was undone in an instant, many campus leaders had been planning for months, anticipating the outcome of the ruling.

    The era of paid college athletes officially begins July 1. With it comes questions about how the landscape will evolve and concerns about equity issues, as well as what the fallout of the settlement may mean for nonrevenue sports.

    A State of Transition

    Experts view revenue-sharing as the most consequential part of the settlement.

    Institutions that opt in to revenue sharing will have up to $20.5 million to spread among their athletes. The lion’s share of that is expected to flow to football, the top revenue-earning sport, followed by men’s basketball, with the second-highest distribution amounts. The annual revenue-sharing cap will increase gradually to $32 million over the course of a decade.

    Jason Montgomery, a partner at the law firm Husch Blackwell, said that one commonly discussed formula would see 75 percent of revenue disbursed to an institution’s football team, followed by 15 percent to men’s basketball, 5 percent to women’s basketball, and the remainder spread across all other sports. But he noted institutions can adjust that formula as they see fit.

    At institutions that don’t have a football team, the bulk of the revenue will likely be directed to men’s basketball. And some universities that have top basketball programs are tweaking the formula to direct more money to hoops; the University of Houston, for example, may opt for a formula that directs 23 to 25 percent of revenue to men’s basketball, local media reported.

    The back-pay provision is also heavily tilted toward football, which has already prompted an appeal on Title IX grounds, with plaintiffs alleging women are being shorted on damages. The suit, brought by eight former college athletes who competed in soccer, track and volleyball, argues that female athletes are being deprived of more than $1 billion in past damages.

    Financial Models

    For those opting in to revenue-sharing, a major question looms: Where will the money come from?

    Sean Frazier, athletic director at Northern Illinois University and president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, said financial models will vary by institution.

    “You’re going to see a lot more of that innovative way to revenue-share by getting this money from external sources that are not specific to the universities themselves,” Frazier said.

    Some colleges are leaning on boosters and TV deals to bankroll revenue-sharing, while others are taking different approaches. Earlier this month, the Florida Board of Governors approved the use of auxiliary funds to pay student athletes, which could flow from college bookstores, student housing, dining, parking fees and other income streams. (That measure is intended to be temporary as colleges develop long-term plans.)

    In addition to increasing revenues, colleges are looking for ways to cut costs. Montgomery said one way colleges can do that is by eliminating non-revenue-earning sports—such as swimming and track and field—which some institutions have done, though that move has also been accompanied by other financial challenges for the sector.

    Colleges that opt in to the revenue-sharing model don’t have to pay the maximum amount unless they choose to. That could yield scenarios where less resourced institutions pay much less than the $20.5 million cap.

    While experts say there is no firm data point yet on how many colleges have opted in to revenue sharing, those numbers are likely to be just a fraction of the NCAA’s member institutions. As of last summer, that number stood at 1,085 institutions, with 355 at the Division I level.

    “The vast majority of colleges are not going to be part of this revenue-share,” said Michael McCann, a professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.

    Opportunities for Innovation

    Frazier compared college athletics in the aftermath of the House settlement to flying a plane while building it. He expects colleges will adjust their approaches as they go.

    “It is clunky right now because of the fact that we do not have certain guardrails yet finalized as we go into this. That’s why it’s going to be a little bit of a wait-and-see on some things,” he said.

    He urged patience for those trying to navigate the new landscape.

    “I would caution [college] leaders to not jump to trends, to not jump to any situation as a quick fix,” Frazier said. “There’s no silver bullet to be able to manage this. We’re going to have to go through a cycle to really understand what the impacts of the House settlement mean.”

    McCann expects that colleges will largely pay football players, as they have signaled. Where the money flows, he said, will depend on institutional priorities. If an athletic department is focused on keeping up with rival football teams and landing on television, revenue-sharing money will be invested in football. But he thinks leaders should consider investing in other areas, including women’s sports—which have boomed in recent years, judging from the record viewership for women’s basketball.

    “I see an opportunity for schools that opt in to revenue-share to not follow the script of spending most of the money on football players,” McCann said. “I could see some presidents being innovative and saying, ‘Let’s use that money primarily on women’s basketball; let’s try to create a top women’s basketball team, or softball.’ There are opportunities to distribute money in ways that I think are a lot more innovative than simply trying to catch up with all the other football schools.”

    The Professional Era

    To many experts, this moment amounts to the professionalization of college athletics.

    “If this isn’t pay to play, I don’t know what is,” Montgomery said.

    To Montgomery’s point, some colleges have hired general managers and other personnel with professional sports experience. Last year Stanford University tapped former star quarterback Andrew Luck, who spent seven years in the NFL, to return to his alma mater as general manager of the football program. Similarly, in March the University of California, Berkeley, hired former NFL player and head coach Ron Rivera as general manager of its football program.

    Noting that trend, McCann suggested such programs are “operating as quasi pro teams.”

    Federal Legislation?

    For years, observers have speculated that Congress might get involved in college athletics. President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of his own involvement as well; in May, he proposed establishing a presidential commission on college sports before backing off the idea.

    However, many experts don’t expect federal legislation to emerge.

    “It’s a long shot that Congress intervenes,” Montgomery said, arguing that college athletics is not a priority for lawmakers at the moment. At most, he said Congress might codify the House settlement through federal legislation.

    McCann agrees. While he believes “there will be bills introduced, and there will be press conferences and a lot of media coverage,” he doesn’t think such efforts will be fruitful.

    But Frazier, who describes himself as an optimist by nature, is hopeful that federal legislation could come to pass in the near future, and he stressed the importance of being part of those talks.

    “I think at the end of the day, we need to help [Trump], we need to help the federal government understand what will work,” he said. “Because we have a perception issue that college athletics can’t govern itself. We’ve created that perception as an industry, and what we need to do is take it back. What we need to do is to show the folks that have doubted us, that [think] we’ve lost control, that there is control, and the only way you can do that is with experience, leadership and execution.”

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  • How Changes in NCAA Athletics Impact Everyone on Campus, The Key

    How Changes in NCAA Athletics Impact Everyone on Campus, The Key

    College athletics has fundamentally changed in the last two decades. With students earning thousands—sometimes millions—for their name, image and likeness and changing teams with greater ease via the transfer portal, athletics have transformed from amateur levels to something more akin to a professional sports league.

    The imminent ruling on the $2.8 billion House settlement case stands to bring about even more change for the sector.

    In the latest episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, Editor in Chief Sara Custer speaks with Karen Weaver, an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania, about what the new landscape means for everyone on college campuses, not just those in the athletic department.

    “College athletics have played a critical role in higher education for over 100 years,” said Weaver. “The problem is that the money that has come into so much of college athletics at the highest level is just astronomical.”

    With coaching salaries well into the millions and eight-figure investments into athletics facilities, the campus starts to look and feel differently, she said. “I think that has an impact on everybody.”

    Meanwhile, ensuring athletes have academic success is further complicated when they can change institutions to pursue more lucrative deals, she said.

    “The transfer portal has created an enormous burden on academic counselors and faculty when athletes are supposed to make normal progress toward a degree—all of that is very confusing now,” she said.

    Weaver explained what policy shifts mean for the future of Olympic teams as well as Division II and III programs. In light of rumors that President Trump plans to sign an executive order to regulate payments for name, image and likeness, Weaver suggested collective bargaining would be a more comprehensive solution to the legal and financial complexities of the current state of affairs.

    “I understand collective bargaining with students is tough, I get that, and it’s messy … but it’s still a legitimate outlet to try to address all of these issues and it needs to be talked about more.”

    Listen to the full episode here.

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  • Do transgender student athletics fall under DOGE Subcommittee jurisdiction?

    Do transgender student athletics fall under DOGE Subcommittee jurisdiction?

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    Do transgender student athletes’ involvement in girls’ and women’s sports — an issue that has recently jeopardized schools’ federal funding — fall under government efficiency and oversight? That question starkly divided lawmakers among party lines in a nearly 4-hour hearing on Wednesday held by the Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee, a newly-formed subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. 

    The DOGE Subcommittee hearing — meant to discuss the politically charged issue of Title IX and transgender student rights that has taken center stage under the Trump administration — quickly deteriorated to repeated gavel-banging, a motion to adjourn the meeting, disagreement over the committee’s purpose, arguments over lawmakers’ allotted speaking times, and discussions of differences in male and female elbow-joint anatomy and muscle mass. 

    The subcommittee was created to oversee “federal civil service, including compensation, classification, and benefits; federal property disposal; government reorganizations and operations, including transparency, performance, grants management, and accounting measures generally,” according to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s rule book. 

    Witnesses included two cisgender female athletes advocating for athletic teams without transgender students, the chair for the USA Fencing Board of Directors, and the CEO of National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights.

    Republican lawmakers, who have called for less federal oversight of education and a return of that power to the states, said the hearing was necessary because it related to Title IX, a federal law meant to prohibit sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. 

    “It’s an important issue that biological men stay out of women’s sports,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, chair of the committee and Republican from Georgia. 

    Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., said the hearing was meant to “shine a light not only on the integrity of women’s sports,” but also on how institutions like USA Fencing and others may be misusing their authority to “push controversial policies that violate basic human rights and disregard their Congressionally-authorized mission.”

    “This is what happens when you allow God to be pushed out of everything,” added Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz. 

    Democratic lawmakers at the hearing, however, said it was a waste of the subcommittee’s time and did not fall under the body’s jurisdiction, which instead includes issues like proposed cuts across the government. 

    “This subcommittee could be focusing on the layoffs that President Trump has executed: over 200,000 firings of federal employees,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass. “That does affect the efficiency of our government programs.” 

    Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., concurred, saying the subcommittee has “never really talked about government efficiency or any serious legislative work,” and that he was “surprised that this subcommittee is not apparently in charge of policing women’s sports.” 

    Witnesses at a DOGE Subcommittee hearing raise their hands in oath

    Stephanie Turner, left, a fencer who refused to compete against a transgender athlete, and Payton McNabb, right, a former North Carolina high school volleyball player injured by a transgender opponent, are sworn in during the hearing held by the Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee at the U.S. Capitol on May 7, 2025, in Washington, D.C.

    Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images via Getty Images

     

    DOGE impacts on K-12

    The DOGE Subcommittee is among the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration and Republicans to cut back on what they say are instances of abuse, fraud and waste in the government. Its formation is an extension of similar efforts conducted by the Department of Government Efficiency, also referred to as DOGE. 

    Those efforts have had major implications for the K-12 sector in recent months, including gutting the Education Department by laying off more than 1,300 employees, closing or significantly reducing its offices, canceling grants entirely or retracting grant competitions, and proposing a 15% cut to the department’s funding. 

    The reduction in expenses from DOGE’s efforts is also expected to put a strain on K-12 finances, according to a Moody’s report released in April. 

    Among DOGE cuts were seven of the Education Department’s 12 local offices for the Office for Civil Rights, leaving schools with reduced oversight of civil rights compliance. Those offices were in charge of investigating allegations of Title IX violations — the subject of the hearing Wednesday — for half of states. 

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  • Feds suspend $175M to University of Pennsylvania over trans athletics policy

    Feds suspend $175M to University of Pennsylvania over trans athletics policy

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    The Trump administration has suspended $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, citing its athletics participation policies for transgender students, according to a Wednesday post from a White House social media account. 

    The cuts are to discretionary spending from the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to Fox Business, the first to report the news. 

    “We are aware of media reports suggesting a suspension of $175 million in federal funding to Penn, but have not yet received any official notification or any details,” a Penn spokesperson said via email Wednesday. 

    The spokesperson added, “We have been in the past, and remain today, in full compliance with the regulations that apply to not only Penn, but all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer institutions.”

    In an executive order last month, President Donald Trump barred colleges and K-12 schools from allowing transgender women to play on sports teams that align with their gender identity and threatened to pull all federal funding from institutions that don’t comply. 

    The day after Trump signed the directive, the U.S. Department of Education opened a Title IX investigation into Penn, San José State University and a K-12 athletics association over policies the agency said were out of step with the executive order. 

    Former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, has been at the center of polarizing debates over gender identity and college athletics participation. In 2022, Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win a NCAA Division I championship for her victory in the women’s 500-yard freestyle. 

    Last week, more than a dozen college athletes sued the NCAA, alleging that allowing Thomas to compete in the championship violated Title IX, the sweeping statute barring sex-based discrimination in federally funded institutions. 

    The complaint comes only a month after a similar lawsuit was filed against Penn and the NCAA over Thomas’ participation in the Ivy League’s 2022 swimming championship. 

    The NCAA updated its policies after Trump’s executive order to only allow students assigned female at birth to compete in women’s athletics.

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  • Department of Education Releases Title IX Rulemaking on Transgender Student Eligibility in School Athletics – CUPA-HR

    Department of Education Releases Title IX Rulemaking on Transgender Student Eligibility in School Athletics – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | April 12, 2023

    On April 6, the U.S. Department of Education released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on student eligibility for athletic teams under Title IX. The proposed rulemaking focuses on transgender students’ eligibility to participate on athletic teams as legislation and policies at the federal, state and local levels have been introduced to ban transgender student participation in athletic programs.

    Under the NPRM, schools that receive federal funding would not be permitted to adopt or apply a “one-size-fits-all” ban on transgender students participating on teams consistent with their gender identity. Instead, the proposal allows schools the flexibility to develop team eligibility criteria that serves important educational objectives, such as fairness in competition and preventing sports-related injuries. The Department further explains that the eligibility criteria must take into account the sport, level of competition, and grade or education level of students participating, and the criteria would have to minimize harm to students whose opportunity to participate on a team consistent with their gender identity would be limited or denied.

    The NPRM comes after the Biden administration announced its intention to release such a proposed rule after it excluded language on transgender student eligibility in athletics in its June 2022 Title IX proposed rule. The rule comes as policymakers at the federal, state and local levels have introduced and passed legislation that bans transgender participation on women’s athletic teams. Most recently, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, out of the Education and the Workforce Committee, where it now awaits a full floor vote. The bill would prohibit federally-funded education programs or activities to operate, sponsor or facilitate athletic programs or activities that allow individuals of the male sex to participate in programs or activities that are designated for women or girls, defining “sex” as an individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.

    Public comments in response to the NPRM will be due 30 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register. CUPA-HR will work with other higher education associations to fully analyze the NPRM and respond accordingly.



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