Last Tuesday, a handful of students at a college with fewer than 7,000 students voted 13-2 to form a union that could change college athletics forever.
The basketball players claimed they are now Dartmouth College employees, who would be represented by Service Employees International Union Local 560, which already represents some university workers, said The Washington Post.
Legal skirmishes lie ahead regarding what rights college athletes have and do not have under federal laws. The NCAA is standing by its operating model based on amateurism, and most significantly, its rights to divide up the billions that college sports generate year-round, according to a story in The New York Times.
Just before the vote, Dartmouth filed an appeal to the February decision by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board to classify the athletes as employees. The NLRB only has jurisdiction over private employers, the Times wrote.
Dartmouth College stands strongly against the players and could take the board’s decision as far as a federal appellate court, which would mean the current players could graduate before collective bargaining issues are resolved, the Times reported.
In a statement from the college, the school wrote, “Classifying these students as employees simply because they play basketball is as unprecedented as it is inaccurate,” the Associated Press reported.
Dartmouth based another part of its statement on the school’s reputation as an academic power, not a sports school.
“For Ivy League students who are varsity athletes, academics are of primary importance, and athletic pursuit is part of the educational experience,” the statement read, according to AP. Students at Dartmouth should not be classified as employees “simply because they play basketball. We, therefore, do not believe unionization is appropriate,” the statement concluded.
A few hours after the vote the Big Green broke a 9-game losing streak with a 76-69 win over Harvard.
Dartmouth’s record improved to 6-21, 2-12 in the Ivy League. Harvard dipped to 14-13, 5-9.
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