Law Commons^™

The O’Bannon decision made a significant change to one of the philosophical pillars of intercollegiate athletics in allowing for greater compensation for student athletes. At the same time, the court took only an incremental step in the direction of pay for college athletes: The decision was limited to football and men’s basketball players — as opposed to non-revenue-generating sports — and it set a yearly cap of $5,000 for each of these athletes. However, the court left open the possibility for — indeed, it almost seemed to invite — future challenges to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s restrictions on student-athlete …

Using the controversial 1987 case between Georgetown University and a gay and lesbian student organization as a backdrop, this article analyzes the free exercise rights of religiously-affiliated colleges and universities and their ability to discriminate against gay and lesbian student groups. The article tracks the jurisprudential development of free exercise challenges and details why current United States Supreme Court precedent provides little protection for such colleges and universities. Given the weakened state of free exercise rights, this article examines what rights and protections, if any, gays and lesbians have under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause and local and state …