Northwestern Gets Off Field Victory

In a surprising decision that amounts to punting on the issue, the National Labor Relations Board on Monday declined to assert jurisdiction in the historic Northwestern University case after football players had been deemed to be employees by the regional NLRB director last year.

Effectively, the decision is a major victory for Northwestern and the NCAA. Analysts expected the five-member NLRB to either back or reverse the decision, but instead, the board exercised its discretion not to take charge of the case and dismissed the representation petition filed by the College Athletes Players Association, which had worked with then-quarterback Kain Colter and the Wildcats football team.

"In the decision, the Board held that asserting jurisdiction would not promote labor stability due to the nature and structure of NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)," the NLRB wrote in its decision. "By statute the Board does not have jurisdiction over state-run colleges and universities, which constitute 108 of the roughly 125 FBS teams.

"In addition, every school in the Big Ten, except Northwestern, is a state-run institution. As the NCAA and conference maintain substantial control over individual teams, the Board held that asserting jurisdiction over a single team would not promote stability in labor relations across the league.

"This decision is narrowly focused to apply only to the players in this case and does not preclude reconsideration of this issue in the future."

A ruling in support of the CAPA would have affected all private schools with football programs in the NCAA's top tier, as the NLRB governs the relationships between private business and employees. There are 17 of these universities: Baylor, Boston College, BYU, Duke, Miami, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rice, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, TCU, Tulane, Tulsa, USC, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.