We Support the “#JforJustice” Campaign for the Fair Treatment of College Athletes

Petition by College Athletes and Our Supporters

Despite generating huge streams of revenue for our universities and the NCAA, a lack of enforced health and safety standards subjects us college athletes to serious injury, death, and sexual abuse. Colleges and the NCAA unjustly collude to deny us a fair portion of the revenue they generate, and female college athletes still endure discriminatory treatment. We launched the #JforJustice Campaign to bring forth vital protections and rights for current college athletes and generations of future college athletes:

• Enforcement of health & safety standards
• Fair compensation
• End discrimination against female college athletes
• Preserve all sports

We call for better enforcement of health and safety standards to prevent abuse, serious injury, and death. The NCAA vigorously enforces it rules prohibiting athlete compensation, but it is NOT against NCAA rules to sexually abuse a college athlete or kill a college athlete in a hazardous workout.   

• Over 25% of college athletes report being sexually harassed or abused by an authority figure on campus
• 85 college athletes have died between 2000-2018
• About 50% of athletic trainers report returning athletes to the same game with concussions and being pressured by athletics personnel to do so.
• About 2/3 of Division I college athletes suffer a major college sports injury and about 50% of us will endure chronic injuries after their eligibility expires.  

Inaction on health and safety will continue to give sexual predators safe haven and will guarantee that more of us will suffer avoidable injury and death. 

We call for fair compensation for all athletes, including scholarships for Ivy League Athletes. This means more compensation for athletes playing Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball and FBS football, who are currently being compensated well below fair market value. This injustice hurts all athletes in these sports and has a disproportionate impact on Black athletes who comprise the majority of athletes on these teams. This can be achieved without cutting other sports. Instead, the funds can come from reducing excess spending on coaches’ salaries and luxury facilities.

Also, it is unjust for Ivy League college athletes to be denied compensation (scholarships) that all other Division I college athletes receive. Ivy League colleges have the wealthiest endowments in the nation and their scholarship ban is especially harmful to low-income families. Ivy League universities are among those recently sued over claims of illegal price-fixing and unfairly limiting financial aid.

We call for an end to discrimination against female athletes. 2022 marks the 50th year anniversary of Title IX.  However, men’s sports continue to receive more support than women’s sports and there are approximately 100,000 more male college athletes than female college athletes in our country.  We are calling for mandates for colleges to post detailed Title IX compliance reports publicly on their websites, and for athletic directors to be held accountable for noncompliance.  

Finally, we seek to preserve all sports.  We call for an end to the tax-exempt treatment of athletic revenues for colleges that undermine their educational tax-exempt purpose by cutting sports. The college sports industry pays no taxes on $15 billion in annual revenue from TV deals, ticket sales, and licensing contracts because it claims an educational mission.  To justify this tax exemption, colleges should be held to a standard that prioritizes the preservation of athletes’ educational opportunities and scholarships.  Athletic programs that cut sports while paying million-dollar salaries to coaches should have their earnings taxed like a regular business.  This will incentivize them to fulfill their educational mission by preserving all sports.