Northwestern University and College Athletes Players Association
National Labor Relations Board
362 N.L.R.B. No. 167, Case 13-RC-121359 (2015)

- Written by Sarah Hoffman, JD
Facts
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), similar to other sports leagues, was an organization created by academic institutions to enforce rules regarding eligibility, practice, and competitions among teams. The NCAA had significant control over how individual teams operated, and labor issues that affected individual teams and their players also affected the NCAA and other teams in the league. Of the league’s teams, more than 80 percent came from state schools. The states where several NCAA members were located had laws that specifically defined scholarship athletes at public universities as not being employees. Scholarship athletes (plaintiffs) from Northwestern University, a private university that was a member of the NCAA, and the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA) (plaintiff), a sports association, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The athletes and CAPA asked that the NLRB assert jurisdiction over the athletes as employees under the National Labor Relations Act.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning ()
What to do next…
Here's why 816,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.