D3 Scholarships at Center of NCAA Antitrust Lawsuit

A new antitrust lawsuit could upend one of Division III athletics’ defining rules: the NCAA’s prohibition on D3 athletic scholarships.

Three current and former D3 student-athletes filed a proposed class-action lawsuit Friday in federal court in California, seeking damages and an injunction against the NCAA’s ban, according to Sportico. The proposed class could encompass hundreds of thousands of student-athletes who competed since October 2022.

D3 Scholarships: Inside the Lawsuit

Named plaintiffs include Jackson Hale, a senior defensive back at Pacific Lutheran University and the only current student-athlete among them. The other two are University of Lynchburg dual-sport student-athlete Chris Jennings (‘23), who swam and played lacrosse, and Connor Printz (‘24), who competed for Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s basketball.

They argue the NCAA’s rules prevent more than 420 Division III institutions from offering athletic financial aid, suppressing the value of student-athletes’ contributions. At the heart of the dispute is whether the restrictions on violate federal antitrust law. It comes amid a series of legal challenges to the NCAA’s limits on student-athlete compensation.

For Printz, the cost of attending Claremont-Mudd-Scripps contributed to his decision to leave the basketball program early in the 2023-24 season. His complaint states that tuition, room and board totaled nearly $80,000 that year. He alleges that even a partial athletic scholarship would have convinced him to finish his senior season.

While in college, he also secured endorsement deals worth up to $50,000.

The plaintiffs built their case on the Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling in NCAA v. Alston, which affirmed that antitrust scrutiny still applies to NCAA restrictions on certain education-related benefits. They argue banning D3 scholarships amounts to an agreement among competing conferences to prevent member schools from offering athletic financial aid.

A federal court in Indiana dismissed a similar challenge in Rock v. NCAA in 2013, finding the Division III scholarship ban presumptively procompetitive at the pleading stage. That ruling presents a significant legal hurdle for the new lawsuit.

Any damages would depend on the court’s ruling and the losses student-athletes can prove. If the plaintiffs prevail, the case could also put the NCAA’s longstanding ban on D3 athletic scholarships at risk.