While the state’s recently passed “Student Athlete Bill of Rights” establishes some much-needed guidelines for how student-athletes should be treated, the scope of the legislation is not great enough to enact actual change.
Previously, many student-athletes, especially in revenue-generating sports like football and men’s basketball, had not been granted enough protections in the case of unforeseen injuries.
The bill, signed into law on Sept. 27 by Gov. Jerry Brown, is commendable in that it is the first set of legislation to grant student-athletes defined rights. Under the provisions of the bill, injured athletes are guaranteed the financial aid required for completing their education. It also requires that athletic departments provide medical insurance for athletes that cannot afford it, conduct financial and life skills workshops and adopt stricter regulations for treating on-field concussions and dehydration.
The bill has a crucial flaw, however: It applies only to schools generating more than $10 million in media revenue, specifically UC Berkeley, Stanford, USC and UCLA. These schools benefit from a 12-year, $2.7 billion television rights deal signed by the Pac-12 Conference in 2011 ““ San Diego State could eventually be included after the school moves to the Big East Conference. The bill is slated to go into effect in 2013, but lasts for only eight years.
We wonder: Why distinguish between the haves and the have-nots, especially when it comes to such basic rights?
If a school is willing to commit any amount of athletic aid to a student athlete, it should be willing to commit to that athlete until he or she finishes a degree program, regardless of the athlete’s status on the team. This simple provision could certainly be extended to the entire state.
State Sen. Alex Padilla, the author of the bill, said in a statement that this bill only applies to “elite universities” because these schools generate revenue from TV deals. The bill states that only money derived from these deals should be used to provide for the student-athletes.
But many of these schools had already been in compliance with the bill. In UCLA’s case, the university has programs in place that guarantee injured athletes can continue their education. UCLA removes athletes that have to medically retire from athletic aid and provides financial aid so that they can continue to pursue a degree.
The fact that these rights were written into state law marks a watershed moment for California’s student-athletes. But restricting this bill to just four schools does a disservice to those competing at other schools and creates two sets of standards dictated simply by media revenue. This bill will not be effective unless it applies to the entire body of student-athletes in the state.
Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the editorial board