Today's Law As Amended


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AB-609 College Athlete Race and Gender Equity Act.(2021-2022)



As Amends the Law Today


SECTION 1.

 Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 67470) is added to Part 40.3 of Division 5 of Title 3 of the Education Code, to read:

CHAPTER  3. The college athlete race and gender equity act
67470.
 (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) Data clearly shows that college athletes of color in the sports of football and men’s basketball have graduated at rates lower than those of other students, other athletes, and their teammates.
(2) Scholars have concluded that Black college athletes as a group often experience educational neglect due to a range of issues, including the lack of adequate academic learning support, practices associated with maintaining athletic eligibility instead of academic advancement, academic clustering, and limitations placed on course selections and academic majors.
(3) In March 2018, the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center, released a report that 40 percent of the universities studied reported a decline in graduation rates for Black male athletes between 2016 and 2018, inclusive.
(4) California’s Football Bowl Subdivision football players and Division I men and women basketball players are predominantly Black, and are the only college athletes in the state who do not receive at least 50 percent of the revenue that they produce.
(5) Data taken from the federal Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1092) and the National Center for Education Statistics for the academic year 2018–2019 shows that, after accounting for an average full athletic scholarship of forty-five thousand one hundred forty-three dollars ($45,143), the average California Football Bowl Subdivision football player and men’s and women’s basketball player would have needed an additional one hundred twenty-nine thousand three hundred eighty dollars ($129,380), one hundred seven thousand two hundred ninety-six dollars ($107,296), and fifteen thousand one hundred three dollars ($15,103), respectively, to receive 50 percent of the revenue that they produced.
(6) Excessive athletic program expenditures on salaries, administration, and facilities are not necessary to field intercollegiate athletics and should be partially redirected to address racial and gender-based inequities endured by college athletes.
(b) (1) It is the intent of the Legislature to monitor the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) working group created in May 2019 to examine issues relating to the use of a student’s name, image, and likeness and revisit this issue to implement significant findings and recommendations of the NCAA working group in furtherance of the act that added this chapter.
(2) It is the further intent of the Legislature to continue to develop policies to ensure appropriate protections are in place to avoid exploitation of student athletes, colleges, and universities.
67471.
 For purposes of this chapter, the following definitions apply:
(a) “Athletic program” means an intercollegiate athletic program at an institution of higher education. Club and intramural programs are excluded.
(b) “College athlete” means a college or university student who participates in an athletic program in the state.
(c) “Institution of higher education” means a public or private four-year college or university located in the state, or a public or private two-year college located in the state that maintains an athletic program.
(d) “Operating expenses” means game-day expenses, as reported by institutions of higher education to the United States Department of Education.
(e) “Qualifying college athlete” means an athlete receiving a grant-in-aid athletic scholarship for a sport described in subdivision (c) of Section 67472.
67472.
 (a) A name, image, and likeness royalty fee shall be paid by each institution of higher education whose college athletes receive a grant-in-aid athletics scholarship in their respective sport.
(b) Subdivision (a) applies to all institutions of higher education with sports designated as members of NCAA Division I, the Football Championship Subdivision, or the Football Bowl Subdivision, in which 50 percent of the institution’s total sports revenue in the state, as reported to the United States Department of Education, exceeds the total aggregate grant-in-aid athletic scholarships amount provided to the institution’s college athletes in that sport, within the division or subdivision, during a reporting year.
(c) The name, image, and likeness royalty fee amount for a college athlete shall be determined for each sport, and division or subdivision, by subtracting the total aggregate grant-in-aid athletic scholarships amount provided to the institution’s college athletes in a sport from 50 percent of the institution’s total sports revenue in the state, as reported to the United States Department of Education. That difference shall be divided by the total number of college athletes receiving a grant-in-aid athletic scholarship in that sport during the reporting year. The resulting quotient shall be the name, image and likeness royalty fee amount that will be distributed to a college athlete pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 67473.
(d) Name, image, and likeness royalty fees shall be deposited into an institution’s Royalty Fee Distribution Fund, established under Section 67473, on or before January 15 of each year.
(e) An institution of higher education shall make public, and provide to its college athletes, all sport-specific revenue data, including name, image, and likeness royalty fee calculations and payments, on or before January 15 of each year.
67473.
 (a) An institution of higher education required to pay a name, image, and likeness royalty fee pursuant to Section 67472 shall deposit the fee into a Royalty Fee Distribution Fund that the institution shall establish on or after January 1, 2022.
(b) From the Royalty Fee Distribution Fund established pursuant to subdivision (a), an institution of higher education shall distribute a name, image, and likeness royalty fee to each qualifying college athlete in the amount determined pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 67472. A public institution of higher education shall only distribute a name, image, and likeness royalty fee to a qualifying college athlete upon appropriation by the Legislature.
(c) A name, image, and likeness royalty fee distributed to a college athlete pursuant to this chapter shall not be considered financial aid, shall not cause a college athlete’s financial aid to be reduced, and does not establish or constitute evidence of an employment relationship between the college athlete and their institution of higher education.
67474.
 Each institution of higher education shall comply with Title IX of the federal Education Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1681 et seq.), as it applies to college athletics by doing all of the following:
(a) Monitoring and providing publicly available evaluations of its compliance with Title IX.
(b) Designating an employee as the Title IX coordinator, providing the designee with appropriate Title IX training, and making the designee’s name and contact information publicly available and known to its college athletes.
(c) Suspending an athletic director from intercollegiate athletics responsibilities in the state for three years if Title IX compliance is not achieved on or before January 1, 2025, and maintained for at least 6 months in each 12-month period after January 1, 2025.
(d) Preserving each athletic program’s college athletes’ educational opportunities and grant-in-aid athletic scholarship amounts to the greatest extent possible. All other available and prudent athletic program cost-cutting options shall be implemented before, or simultaneously with, any reduction in college athletes’ aggregate unduplicated participation numbers or grant-in-aid athletic scholarship amounts, as reported to the United States Department of Education.
67475.
 (a) An institution of higher education that receives state funds or state tax-exempt status shall not compensate athletics administrative personnel in an amount that exceeds 50 percent of the average total intercollegiate athletics administrative personnel compensation expenses incurred in 2019 among institutions of higher education that belonged to the Football Championship Subdivision of the NCAA. An institution of higher education’s total intercollegiate athletics administrative personnel compensation expenses limit shall increase by 3 percent per year.
(b) (1) An institution of higher education that receives state funds or state tax-exempt status shall not enter into a contract from January 1, 2022, to January 1, 2032, inclusive, for new facility expenditures, including upgrades, related to intercollegiate athletics unless the facility expenditure is necessary for matters of health and safety, would result in a net benefit to the environment, or is necessary to ensure compliance Title IX of the federal Education Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1681 et seq.).
(2) The prohibition described in paragraph (1) does not apply to facility repair and maintenance expenses.
(c) An institution of higher education that receives state funds or state tax-exempt status, shall not incur in a fiscal year sport-specific operating expenses that exceed 75 percent of the average sport-specific operating expenses per participant in its division or subdivision, as reported in 2019.
67476.
 (a) The provisions of this chapter are severable. If any provision of this chapter or its application is held invalid, that invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications that can be given effect without the invalid provision or application.
(b) A college athlete who is harmed by violations of this chapter has the right to a private action against a violator.
SEC. 2.
 If the Commission on State Mandates determines that this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.