The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- March 15, 1999

Judge's Proposition 16 ruling leaves NCAA initial-eligibility rule in limbo

A U.S. district judge has ruled that NCAA initial-eligibility legislation has an unjustified disparate impact on African-Americans.

However, the March 8 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter March 8 does not preclude the Association from establishing initial-eligibility standards, nor does it prevent the NCAA from using standardized-test scores in forming such rules.

"The court ... simply found fault with the standards we have currently in place," said Charles T. Wethington, president of the University of Kentucky and chair of the NCAA Executive Committee. "We will move expeditiously to try to take the court's actions into account as we look at initial-eligibility standards for the future. At the same time, we will seek a stay that will give us some time to work on the problem."

The Association filed papers March 10 in an effort to stay Buckwalter's judgment, which permanently enjoins the NCAA from continued operation and implementation of Proposition 16 (Bylaw 14.3). NCAA President Cedric W. Dempsey also announced that the Association will appeal the ruling.

The NCAA's request for a stay was made necessary because Buckwalter's ruling was effective immediately, leaving initial-eligibility standards in a confused state. General Counsel Elsa Kircher Cole said the NCAA would be in communication with the membership as more information is known.

In reaching his decision, Buckwalter also ruled that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to the NCAA because the Association is an indirect recipient of federal funds.

The lawsuit originally was filed by two African-American student-athletes (Tai Kwan Cureton and Leatrice Shaw) who claimed that they were unlawfully denied educational opportunities as freshmen through the NCAA initial-eligibility rules.

Cureton and Shaw ranked 27th and fifth, respectively, in their high-school graduating classes. However, Bylaw 14.3 determines initial eligibility through the use of a sliding scale that matches grade-point average with a standardized-test score (satisfactory completion of 13 core courses also is required). Neither Cureton nor Shaw scored the required test score.

Buckwalter's decision contained two parts: Whether the NCAA receives federal funds and therefore is subject to Title VI and whether Proposition 16 violates Title VI.

His decision that the NCAA is in fact subject to Title VI came only two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that the Association cannot be considered to be federally funded simply because it receives dues payments from member institutions that do receive federal funds.

In this case, the plaintiffs claimed the NCAA (1) directly receives federal financial assistance through the National Youth Sports Program, (2) that the NCAA indirectly receives federal financial assistance through NYSP due to the Association's complete control over the fund, (3) that member schools that receive federal funds have created and constitute the NCAA and that the NCAA governs its members with respect to athletics rules and (4) that recipients of federal financial assistance have ceded controlling authority over to a federally funded program to the NCAA, which then becomes subject to Title VI regardless of whether it is a recipient.

Buckwalter ruled that the NCAA does not receive direct federal funding through NYSP, but he ruled for the plaintiffs on the other three points.

"Although the (NYSP) Fund is the named recipient of the (Community Services) block grant, it is merely a conduit through which the NCAA makes all of the decisions about the Fund and the use of federal funds," Buckwalter wrote. "...Consequently, as the NCAA is deemed a recipient of federal funds under this theory, all of its operations, including its promulgation of initial-eligibility rules, are covered by Title VI."

Regarding Points 3 and 4, Buckwalter wrote that although member institutions do not have to abide by NCAA legislation, they would suffer "grave consequences" for their intercollegiate athletics programs if they failed to do so.

"Plaintiffs have established on this record that the member colleges and universities have granted to the NCAA the authority to promulgate rules affecting intercollegiate athletics that the members are obligated to abide by and enforce," Buckwalter wrote. "Under these facts, the NCAA comes sufficiently within the scope of Title VI irrespective of its receipt of federal funds.

"While each of the member schools is also undeniably subject to Title VI for a challenge to Proposition 16, the NCAA, in light of the fact that it is the decision-making and enforcement entity behind the legislation adopted by, and enforced against, its membership, is also subject to Title VI."

Having concluded that the NCAA is subject to Title VI, Buckwalter then ruled that Proposition 16 has an unjustified disparate impact on African-Americans.

Although attorneys for the Association sought to establish that Proposition 16 standards have produced educational benefits for African-Americans despite that disproportionate impact, Buckwalter focused on the rule itself. "...The bare statistics themselves plainly evince that African-Americans are being selected by Proposition 16 at a rate disproportionately lower than whites," he wrote.

Buckwalter also sided with the plaintiffs' assertion that the test score cutoffs of 820 (SAT) and 68 (ACT) were arbitrary.

The judge noted that other initial-eligibility models -- including one with no grade-point or test-score end points -- substantially reduce the effect on black ineligibility with only a slight decrease in the overall student-athlete graduation rate.

"The courts have issued us a road map, basically, of how to meet their requirements of this particular civil rights law," Cole said.

Statement on initial-eligibility rulingStatement from Charles T. Wethington, chair of NCAA Executive Committee, regarding a federal court's ruling on NCAA initial-eligibility standards:

The NCAA learned March 8 of the judge's decision in Cureton v. NCAA. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, declaring the NCAA's Division I initial-eligibility standards invalid.

The court also ruled the Association is to be regarded a recipient of federal funds because of its contribution of administration services to the National Youth Sports Program Fund and the court's belief that member colleges and universities have ceded their authority over federally funded programs to the NCAA.

While we are disappointed with the court's order -- which we believe improperly rejected the NCAA's current use of minimum standardized test scores as a component of the initial-eligibility standards -- we are encouraged by some acknowledgments from the court.

We are encouraged by the court's acknowledgment that the initial-eligibility standards -- established by NCAA member colleges and universities with the objective of raising student-athlete graduation rates -- serve a legitimate educational goal. In addition, the judge has not precluded use of the SAT or ACT as a part of an initial-eligibility rule. The challenge for the NCAA remains as it has always been: to develop standards that meet that goal.

The court has said that Title VI requires the NCAA to "justify how its choice of a rule serves a legitimate educational goal in a significant way." We believe the NCAA has done so, but the court has disagreed.

The NCAA, since the inception of Prop 16, has continued its research about initial-eligibility standards, which has led to the creation of alternative initial-eligibility models. Those models have been under review by committees within our membership since last summer.

Division I will move swiftly to address options that meet the criteria of the court. Division II is not specifically affected by the decision, but that division will review its initial-eligibility standards in light of the court's decision and determine what, if any, action should be taken.

Obviously, we are greatly concerned at this moment with the effect this ruling will have on the academic preparedness of prospective student-athletes. Remember, the NCAA developed initial-eligibility standards because higher education was accused of exploiting student-athletes by admitting ill-prepared prospects with little chance of academic success.

We will ask for a stay of this decision. We will do so because this decision creates an environment among our member schools in which we have no single eligibility rule in place and where schools in Divisions I are left to their own policies. If the court's ruling is sustained in its present form, we will have hundreds of minimum academic standards rather than one, because admission standards of individual colleges and universities will become eligibility standards.

The court has agreed to receive proposals March 10 to clarify that the ruling only prohibits the use of standardized tests score cutoffs in initial-eligibility rules. The NCAA will appeal the court's ruling.