Trump administration reverses plan tying NIL to Title IX guidance

The CU Events Center, home of Colorado men's basketball, women's basketball and women's volleyball. A Biden-era guidance for NIL payments to abide by Title IX legislation was promptly revoked by the Trump administration, removing a roadblock to the House v. NCAA settlement approval in April but thought by some to outcast student-athletes in women's sports. (Photo by Ryan Asaro/Sko Buffs Sports)

President Donald Trump’s administration has rescinded a Department of Education guidance that would have required universities to abide by Title IX when compensating student-athletes. 

That guidance, released in the final days of the Biden Administration, had thrown a wrench into the plans of college athletic departments as they prepare for major changes in collegiate sports. The House v. NCAA settlement, expected to be approved in April, will allow schools to directly pay student-athletes for their name, image and likeness.

In a statement on Feb. 12, acting Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said the guidance was without credible legal justification or authority. 

“The NIL guidance, rammed through by the Biden Administration in its final days, is overly burdensome, profoundly unfair, and it goes well beyond what agency guidance is intended to achieve,” Trainor said. “Title IX says nothing about how revenue-generating athletics programs should allocate compensation among student-athletes.”

Enacted over 50 years ago, Title IX requires schools to provide equal opportunities to men and women for participation in sports. It also requires scholarships, training facilities and coaching staff to be proportional.

The House settlement caps the amount schools can distribute across all programs at $20.5 million. The Biden era memo from Jan. 16 considered that money to be “athletic financial assistance.”

"In forms other than scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of student-athlete NIL, such assistance also must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes," the memo said.

Some football programs in the Southeastern Conference expect to receive 70-75% of their school’s total NIL budgets. At the University of Colorado Boulder, the NFL Network's Jane Slater reported that NIL money has been a source of contention during head football coach Deion Sanders’s contract negotiations.

The University of Colorado athletics department declined to comment on this development.