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Law360 (July 1, 2020, 7:00 PM EDT ) A pair of Democratic senators have floated a bill aiming to block colleges from requiring student-athletes to sign liability waivers related to the COVID-19 pandemic as some schools are starting to allow athletes back on campus and as the NCAA pushes toward a fall season in some form.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced a bill on Tuesday that they're calling the College Athlete Pandemic Safety, or CAPS, Act. The text of S.4102 wasn't immediately available, but Blumenthal said in a tweet Tuesday that the bill "restores the rights schools have tried to strip away from college athletes."
"Forcing college athletes to sign away their rights or risk losing their scholarships in the middle of a pandemic is just the latest in a litany of unacceptable actions schools have taken to exploit these young people," Blumenthal said.
The introduction of the CAPS Act comes less than a week after Blumenthal and Booker wrote a letter to NCAA President Mark Emmert expressing concern about "a growing number of schools ... requiring college athletes to sign liability waivers that acknowledge their risk of contracting COVID-19 while participating in team activities."
The senators urged the NCAA in their June 24 letter to immediately bar member schools from requiring COVID-19 liability waivers and also to work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to come up with policies and procedures for keeping athletes safe, even if that means holding off on restarting sport-related activities.
While some schools are requiring COVID-19 waivers from athletes, experts told Law360 earlier this month that the forms may be difficult to enforce if challenged in court.
Experts said schools must take precautions to ensure the health and safety of their athletes and broader campus communities, including by forcing athletes to comply with certain rules such as washing hands or wearing face masks. But COVID-19 forms, insofar as they attempt to make athletes waive liability against the schools should those precautions not work, would likely face close scrutiny if they result in litigation.
Moreover, experts acknowledged the pandemic is an unprecedented event for the NCAA sports system, and questions remain about the feasibility of hosting college sports in just a matter of weeks, with the virus still spreading and spiking in some states that have reopened, including California and Texas.
A representative for the NCAA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
--Additional reporting by Zachary Zagger. Editing by Stephen Berg.
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