Patricia Dillon

DILLON HAILS SUPREME COURT DECISION ON ATHLETES

(NEW HAVEN, CT) – State Representative Pat Dillon (D-New Haven), author of Connecticut’s student athlete’s “right to know” law, hailed today’s Supreme Court ruling in NCAA v Alston, which held that the NCAA can no longer bar colleges from providing athletes with education-related benefits such as free laptops or paid post-graduate internships.

Rep. Dillon said, "Alston is an important ruling that continues the NCAA’s slow crawl towards treating students fairly. Consider: when I authored legislation for athletic scholarships ten years ago, the NCAA rules allowed one-year athletic scholarships that could be terminated at will. That has changed."
 
The Representative's interest in the NCAA began in her days at Ohio State when athletic scholarships were denied to women, and the status of athletes clearly also involves racial justice.
 
"Many of us have told young people that sports have a redemptive value," said Rep. Dillon. "I look forward to more progress so students are no longer exploited."