WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� The U.S. Education Department is scrapping a from the Biden administration that threatened to upend colleges鈥� plans to pay athletes for their by making those payments subject to federal Title IX rules.
President Donald Trump鈥檚 education officials announced the change Wednesday, saying the policy from former President Joe Biden鈥檚 final days in office had no legal basis under , the 1972 law forbidding sex discrimination in education.
鈥淭he 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,鈥� said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights.
A Jan. 16 memo from the Biden administration told universities that NIL payments must be treated the same as athletic financial aid such as scholarships.
Many universities have publicly said the majority of their NIL payments would go to football and men鈥檚 basketball players under the terms of a that鈥檚 expected to be approved this spring. That threatened to run afoul of the Biden policy, which said NIL payments 鈥渕ust be made proportionately available to male and female athletes.鈥�
Trump鈥檚 education officials said such a sweeping change would require 鈥渃lear legal authority鈥� that does not exist.
鈥淓nacted over 50 years ago, Title IX says nothing about how revenue-generating athletics programs should allocate compensation among student athletes,鈥� Trainor said.
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