A federal lawsuit filed by Grambling women’s basketball player Brenda McKinney against the NCAA seeks to certify a class of Black Division I athletes who competed for HBCU schools last year, alleging that they were victims of racial discrimination by the NCAA’s system of academic enforcement.
In her motion for class certification filed this week, McKinney presents data showing that HBCU schools are far more likely than non-HBCU institutions to receive postseason bans related to the NCAA’s Academic Performance Program (APP).
“We are not trying to prevent the NCAA from monitoring academic performance,” Elizabeth Fegan, McKinney’s attorney, told Sportico in a telephone interview. “We want them to be educated and successful. But the NCAA promised in its bylaws to tie those measures to the student bodies of schools and that is where the NCAA has failed.”
Read the full story on Sportico here.