Ivy League students lose bid to revive class action over athletic pay

By Mike Scarcella

WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - A U.S. federal appeals court on Thursday rejected an appeal from a proposed class of Ivy League student athletes who had sued over their schools’ refusal to pay athletic scholarships or compensation.

Here are some details:

• The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding a lower judge’s order, said the two former student athletes at Brown University who filed the lawsuit in 2023 failed to define a relevant market, a key threshold issue in antitrust lawsuits.

• The students’ lawsuit in federal court in Connecticut accused the eight Ivy League universities of unlawful price-fixing for allegedly denying college athletes benefits they could receive at competing universities.

• The defendants, which include Yale and Harvard, denied that their bans on athletic scholarships violate U.S. antitrust law. They argued that college athletic leagues have independent authority to set rules for financial aid and compensation for student athletes.

• The case is part of a wave of lawsuits in recent years challenging compensation and eligibility rules for student athletes.

• A major appeal in one of the cases is pending in the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, where a panel will weigh a multibillion-dollar settlement that would include payouts to hundreds of thousands of current and former college athletes.

• The U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 opened a door to National Collegiate Athletic Association members to boost education-related compensation and benefits. But the court in that case said individual conferences, such as the Ivy League, could adopt stricter rules for academic awards than the NCAA.

The case is Choh et al v Brown University et al, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-2826.

For plaintiffs: Joshua Davis of Berger Montague

For defendants: Seth Waxman of WilmerHale

Read more:

High school athletes face court setback in lawsuit over compensation

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