The Supreme Court and the NCAA

Two Supreme Court decisions, NCAA v. Board of Regents (1984) and NCAA v. Tarkanian (1988), shaped college sports by permitting the emergence of acommercial enterprise with high financial stakes, while failing to guarantee adequate procedural protections for persons charged with wrongdoing within that enterprise. Brian L. Porto examines the conditions that led to the cases, the reasoning behind therulings, and the consequences of those rulings. He proposes a federal statute that would grant the NCAA a limited "educational exemption" fromantitrust laws, enabling it to enhance academic opportunities for athletes andaffording greater procedural protections to accused parties in NCAA disciplinary proceedings.

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