Latest news with #athleteRights
Daily Mail
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
UPenn swimmer opens up on what it was really like sharing a locker room with trans rival Lia Thomas
A former teammate of Lia Thomas ' has revealed what it was like to share a locker room with the transgender swimmer, who saw their records at the University of Pennsylvania erased last week. The Department of Education announced on Tuesday that Penn was adopting strict definitions for male and female competitors under White House guidelines, adding that the school will ban trans athletes from women's competitions. In the wake of that decision, Thomas' former teammate Margot Kaczorowski exclusively told the Daily Mail that her experience sharing a locker room with the trans athlete amounted to 'sexual harassment.' Now, another one of Thomas' former Penn teammates has spoken out. Monika Burzynska told Fox News Digital that she began changing in the corner of the room - and later in stalls - when Thomas became part of the women's swimming team. 'Around Lia, I wasn't going to risk anything,' Burzynska said. Burzynska recalled thinking how 'it must be terrible to feel like you're trapped in the wrong body,' but admitted she came to believe it was 'not fair' for Thomas to be competing with her. '...You have these issues that are from afar and you never really quite think they're going to touch you personally until you're on a team with Lia Thomas and your locker is directly next to this biological male. And you would have never believed that you'd be facing this issue directly,' said Burzynska. 'And then when that happens, your views change where you still feel sorry for this person because they're clearly so deeply lost. But then it turns into more, 'OK, this is not fair.'' Burzynska's comments echo what Kaczorowski told the Daily Mail, as the latter said she 'tried to be on the opposite side of the locker room' from Thomas. Burzynska, who had a locker next to Thomas, added that she at times waited to change until Thomas was showering. She also said that Thomas, who joined Penn's women's team in 2021, 'wasn't very social' with other members of the squad. Still, she said that last week's news that Penn was wiping Thomas' records gave her 'a deep sense of peace and validation.' 'Not only for me, but for all the girls on the team, for all the girls in the swim world and in the sport world. And I think this decision, it brought back – at least for me – a sense of fairness that had been lost. Women's records belong to women and that protecting the integrity of women's sports still matters.' US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon described Tuesday as a 'great victory for women and girls.' The move came after President Donald Trump previously made the decision to freeze $175 million in federal funding to the school. It's not clear, based on an email from Penn athletic director Alanna Wren to swimmers, whether that funding freeze played a role in the decision. Thomas won a national title as a woman in the 500 free while tying for fifth in the 200 free at the 2022 NCAA Finals with Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has since become the face of the movement to ban trans athletes from female sports. Gaines was among the first to issue a statement on the ruling Tuesday. 'From day one, President Trump and [Education] Secretary [Linda] McMahon made it clear that protecting women and girls is a top priority—and today's agreement with UPenn is proof of that commitment in action.' 'This Administration isn't just talking about women's equality, but instead actively defending it. I hope this sends a clear message to educational institutions: you can no longer disregard women's civil rights. And to every female athlete, know this: your dignity, safety, and fairness matter, and our nation's leaders will not stop fighting for them The NCAA changed its policy on February 6 after Trump signed an executive order on banning transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports.
Associated Press
10-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
NCAA's Baker: Will Congress back $2.8B settlement with antitrust protection?
Now that the NCAA has taken care of its business, its president wants Congress to deliver. NCAA President Charlie Baker, like his predecessor a proponent of federal legislation to lock in some of the seismic changes hitting college sports, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that draft legislation circulating in Washington is what the association has been asking for. Now, it's simply a matter of passing it. 'One of the messages we got from them was, 'Clean up your own house first, and then come talk to us,'' said Baker, a former Massachusetts governor whose political acumen was a key selling point when he was selected for the NCAA job in 2023. The NCAA delivered, Baker said, with new rules that guarantee better post-graduate health care and scholarship protections for athletes, and then with the crown jewel of reforms — the $2.8 billion lawsuit settlement that a federal judge approved last week. The most fundamental change from the settlement is that schools can now directly pay players through revenue-sharing. For that to work, though, Baker and the NCAA have been lobbying for a limited form of antitrust protection that would prevent, for instance, lawsuits challenging the spending cap prescribed by the settlement, which will be $20.5 million in the first year. The Washington Post reported that draft legislation would include room for that sort of protection. Baker suggested that antitrust exemption might also include a carve-out for eligibility rules, which is not part of the settlement but that has landed the NCAA in court as a defendant in various lawsuits challenging a long-held rule that athletes have five years to complete four seasons of eligibility. 'The consequences of this for the next generation of young people, if you play this thing out, are enormous,' Baker said. 'You're moving away from an academic calendar to sort of no calendar for college sports, and that is hugely problematic.' Baker said the other top two priorities for the legislation are: —A preemption of state laws that set different rules for paying players, which amounts to 'competitive advantage stuff' for state legislatures seeking to give their public universities a recruiting edge. 'That's not just an issue for the NCAA on a level-playing-field basis, it's an issue for the conferences,' Baker said. Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, agrees with that, recently saying that it was not good to have a league spanning 12 states operating under 12 different laws guiding player payments and other elements of college sports. —A ban on college athletes being deemed employees. Recently, Tennessee athletic director Danny White suggested collective bargaining for players was 'the only solution.' Whether that would lead to a direct employment model is difficult to know, but Baker said he's not the only one against it. 'This is something every student leadership group I've ever talked to has pretty strong feelings about,' he said. 'They want to be students who play sports, they don't want to be employees because a lot of them worry about what the consequences for their time as students will be if they're obliged to be employees first.' ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: and
New York Times
07-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Even after House v. NCAA settlement, college sports remain broken. But what else is new?
College sports are at an inflection point. Approval of the long-awaited House v. NCAA settlement was finally granted on Friday, a decision set to reshape the future of college sports. And yet, so much of the industry's future is still pinned to Congress and the hopes of federal legislation, all while private equity and 'super league' models circle overhead. President Donald Trump recently considered a commission that would explore the issues facing the NCAA and college athletics, with Nick Saban expected to be involved. Advertisement An enterprise that has long had too many cooks in the kitchen now has all three branches of government and outside financing getting involved. (Wherefore art thou 'stick to sports' crowd?) That's on top of the current power struggle over the future of the College Football Playoff, and the expanding competitive gap between the power conferences and everyone else. All of it underscores just how fractured and dysfunctional college athletics have become, with no quick fixes in sight. But for as dire as all of this might seem, it's not a death rattle, either. College sports are broken and in desperate need of reform. And college sports will be just fine. For too long the NCAA was trapped in amber, still trying to operate as a singular, all-encompassing, amateur production, while its most prominent sports and conferences leaned further into a big-money, professionalized business model. Prior court rulings and allowing athletes to earn name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation have chipped away at the old notion, but only after the NCAA got dragged along, kicking and screaming. The organization consistently opted for incremental half measures over effective reform, which is how we swung from full-ride athletic scholarships feeling grossly insufficient to the guardrails getting ripped off via lawless, pay-for-play NIL deals. Yet college sports keep hanging tough, resilient through change and mismanagement. The House settlement is the latest example, a $2.8 billion agreement that peels away at the last remaining vestiges of amateurism in collegiate athletics by allowing schools to directly pay athletes, yet fails to solve the industry's biggest underlying issue: The NCAA is still ripe for litigation. To be fair, the House settlement is an attempt to find that Goldilocks solution to athlete compensation, as well as revamp the broader governance of college athletics. It improves the status quo, most notably because more athletes will receive a bigger cut of the billions in revenue dollars that college sports generate. It also reflects a shift in posture by the NCAA since Charlie Baker took the reins from Mark Emmert as NCAA president in 2023, and the growing influence of the power conferences. Rather than risking more legal defeats (and financial ruin), the NCAA opted for compromise, bundling a trio of high-profile antitrust lawsuits into one agreement and footing a multi-billion-dollar bill. Advertisement Except it doesn't change the fact that the NCAA and power conferences are still trying to live in two worlds at once — the old and the new — a luxury that even this pricey settlement can't buy. There are still questions about years of eligibility, collective bargaining, athlete employment status, conflicting state laws, Title IX, third-party NIL deals, and the likelihood of Congressional intervening on any of it. Unless Congress or this presidential commission — which is currently on pause — can drum up some legislative action in relatively short order, the House settlement does little to stop the onslaught of legal challenges that have kneecapped the NCAA's authority, again and again. 'The House settlement started with the goal of the NCAA putting an end to the losses it has taken in these litigations all over the country,' Cal Stein, a sports law lawyer, said in an interview with The Athletic earlier this year. 'But the great irony is that it's really just going to lead to more lawsuits.' This lack of harmony plagues college sports beyond the courtrooms, too. Yes, revenues keep climbing, and that money is a direct result of the continued popularity. But don't mistake it to mean every development has been fan friendly. Dollar signs also funded the Great Consolidation of conference realignment and power conference autonomy, dismantling so much of the regionality and tradition that makes college sports special. As fans continue to suffer lost rivalries and increasingly transient rosters (and whatever happens with the Playoff), it's reasonable to argue that enthusiasm has dipped as a result, at least in some corners. But what is unassailable, by any modern cultural standard, is that college sports remain extremely popular, warts and all. College football is the second most-watched sport in America behind the NFL. Men's basketball recently had its best TV audience since 2017 for a Final Four, featuring four No. 1 seeds from power conferences. Women's basketball has experienced exponential growth in the past few years. Nebraska women's volleyball filled a football stadium with 92,000 fans in 2023, breaking the world record for attendance of a women's sports event. Stanford softball set the sport's all-time attendance record this season. Times change. College sports plow on. There's more change ahead. What a much-needed reset actually looks like for the industry is up for debate, and competing voices can haggle over how to best restructure college sports and what role the NCAA should serve. But the House settlement required years of mountain-moving negotiations and billions of dollars in restitution that will totally upend the industry — only to reiterate more is needed. Advertisement '(The settlement is) not the end of the story,' SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said during a recent panel discussion. 'It is a chapter. It's a necessary chapter.' That's a nice way of saying the current Frankenstein approach isn't gonna cut it, and is merely delaying the inevitable. Until then, history tells us to expect more of the same resiliency from college sports in this post-settlement era … or if the College Football Playoff expands (again) to 16 teams … or if the NCAA Tournament expands to 76 teams … or if the President invokes an executive order … or if some version of the power conferences break away in football to form a super league. One of the few constants in college sports is the ability to prosper in spite of themselves. Though it would be nice if that didn't always have to be the case.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Protester pepper-sprayed at CIF track finals in Clovis featuring transgender athlete
A protester supporting a transgender female athlete at the California state track and field championships in Clovis was pepper-sprayed Friday during an altercation outside the track meet, police said. Clovis police spokesperson Ty Wood said officers responded to a physical altercation between two adults at the intersection of Nees and Minnewawa avenues outside Veterans Memorial Stadium where protesters representing both sides gathered. One of them was pepper-sprayed by a person in a vehicle at the intersection. Police arrested a 19 year old, Wood said. The man was booked into Fresno County jail on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon (not a gun), vandalism and obstructing/delaying an officer. The altercation reflected the environment outside the venue as people gathered for the first day of the two-day day meet that includes the participation of a transgender athlete. President Donald Trump singled out the athlete in a social media post Tuesday in which he threatened to withhold federal funds from California for allowing transgender females to compete in school sports. Before qualifying started at 1:45 p.m., there was a crowd of about 10 protesters gathered outside the stadium, receiving honks of support from passing cars. They were there to show support for female athletes. 'I just want to speak up for fairness for all the athletes,' said Dayla Anderson of Fresno, adding it was unfair cisgender girls were set to compete with a transgender girl. Midway through Friday's competition, an aerial banner that read 'No Boys in Girls' Sports' began circling over the stadium. Protesters said they would return Saturday, the final day of the meet. The transgender athlete was met with applause and cheers from the crowd at Veterans Memorial Stadium during her events. The Bee is not identifying the athlete. She qualified for Saturday's championships in three events: the high jump, long jump and triple jump.
Associated Press
20-05-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Zakai Zeigler, SEC's 2-time defensive player of year, suing NCAA to play 5th season in 5 years
Two-time Southeastern Conference defensive player of the year Zakai Zeigler is suing the NCAA over rules limiting him to four seasons in a five-year window as an unlawful restraint of trade under both federal and Tennessee laws. Zeigler's lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The point guard played four seasons at Tennessee, helping the Volunteers to consecutive Elite Eight berths before graduating earlier this month. The Vols went 109-36 during Zeigler's time with the school. Zeigler was a third-team All-American this season, which ended with Tennessee's loss to eventual national runner-up Houston in the Elite Eight on March 30. 'We have requested a preliminary injunction to allow Zakai to compete in the upcoming season while pursuing his graduate studies,' according to a statement from the Garza Law Firm and Litson PLLC. 'We look forward to a swift resolution of this matter so that Zakai can begin preparing for next season.' The NCAA said in a statement the association fully supports athletes profiting from name, image and likeness along with other benefits and is working for such reforms, which includes a proposed $2.8 billion settlement of an antitrust lawsuit. 'A patchwork of different state laws, executive orders and court opinions, make it challenging for any league to operate on a fair playing field, including at the conference level and that's why partnering with Congress to develop a national standard would provide stability for student-athletes and schools everywhere,' the NCAA said. This latest lawsuit against the NCAA notes Zeigler 'diligently completed his undergraduate degree in four years' and graduated this month. That makes Zeigler's lawsuit different from athletes who started careers at junior colleges or lower-division NCAA schools and are seeking a fifth season. Yet the NCAA rule limiting athletes to four seasons during a five-year window keeps Zeigler from playing a fifth season and earning NIL money in 'the most lucrative year of the eligibility window for the vast majority of athletes,' according to the lawsuit. Athletes who redshirt or take five years to finish an undergraduate degree can earn NIL money each of their five years. The lawsuit also points to the NCAA's redshirt system controlling who gets access to a fifth year of eligibility. The lawsuit asks that the NCAA rule be declared a violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act and Tennessee's Trade Practices Act. ___ AP college basketball: and
