Introduction
While intended to clarify applicable laws, U.S. Supreme Court rulings sometimes have consequences that impact society in unexpected ways. These unintended consequences can range from altering the interpretation of existing laws to affecting the balance of power between branches of government.
The June 27, 2025 Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. CASA, Inc., a case involving the issue of whether certain individuals are U.S. citizens under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, is a prime example of such unintended consequences. The ruling had the potential to fundamentally alter collegiate athletics.
The NCAA's Interim NIL Policy
In July 2021, the National Collegiate Athletic Association ("NCAA") abandoned its longstanding amateurism rule and adopted its Interim NIL Policy, which allowed collegiate athletes to earn compensation for their name, image, and likeness ("NIL"). As a consequence, a collegiate NIL marketplace emerged, which included school boosters forming so-called NIL collectives to induce athletes to commit to and attend their schools.
As NIL collectives emerged across the United States, they quickly and fundamentally altered college athletics. To curtail NIL collectives' recruiting inducements and impacts, the NCAA issued guidance classifying NIL collectives as "boosters" under NCAA regulations and reiterating existing NCAA rules prohibiting boosters from engaging in recruiting activities, including recruiting conversations, for a school or guaranteeing or promising athletes NIL deals contingent upon initial or continuing enrollment at a school.
Because boosters cannot be involved in recruiting athletes under NCAA regulations, the NCAA's guidance effectively prevented NIL collectives and other boosters from negotiating with athletes regarding the extent of NIL deals the collectives were willing to offer during the recruiting and transfer processes and only allowed such negotiations once the athletes committed to a school.
This rule became known as the "NIL Recruiting Ban."
Federal Injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban
On January 31, 2024, the State of Tennessee and the Commonwealth of Virginia sued the NCAA in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee on antitrust grounds. They alleged that the NIL Recruiting Ban was an illegal agreement to restrain and suppress competition within the NCAA's Division I athletic labor market.
Tennessee and Virginia sought a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction enjoining the NCAA from (i) enforcing the NIL Recruiting Ban, (ii) taking any other action to prevent prospective college athletes and transfer athletes from engaging in NIL discussions prior to enrollment at a school, and (iii) enjoining the NCAA from enforcing its "Rule of Restitution" as applied to the NIL Recruiting Ban. The NCAA's Rule of Restitution controversially allows the NCAA to punish schools and athletes retroactively if a court temporarily blocks an NCAA rule but the NCAA rule is later upheld as legal.
On May 1, 2024, the State of Florida, the State of New York, and the District of Columbia joined the lawsuit as additional plaintiffs.
On February 23, 2024, the District Court granted a preliminary injunction enjoining and restraining the NCAA from (i) enforcing any rule or authority (including the NIL Recruiting Ban) to the extent such authority prohibits athletes from negotiating NIL compensation with any third party entity, including NIL collectives and other boosters, until a full and final decision on the action's merits and (ii) enforcing the Rule of Restitution as applied to the foregoing NIL activities until a full and final decision on the action's merits.
The NIL Recruiting Ban Injunction was a Universal/Nationwide Injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban
The District Court's injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban was a universal/nationwide injunction because it was not limited to the five plaintiffs in the case (the States of Tennessee, Florida, and New York, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the District of Columbia) and, instead, blocked the NCAA from enforcing the NIL Recruiting Ban against all schools, athletes, NIL collectives, and other boosters across the United States.
Because the injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban was a universal/nationwide injunction, NIL collectives and other boosters nationwide relied on the injunction and freely negotiated NIL deals with prospective and transfer athletes.
Trump's Executive Order Attempting to End Birthright Citizenship
On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14160, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship." The Executive Order's core policy is that it attempted to end automatic birthright citizenship for certain children born in the United States if (i) the mother was unlawfully present, and the father was neither a U.S. citizen nor lawfully present at birth or (ii) the mother was in the U.S. lawfully but temporarily (for example, a tourist or on a student visa), and the father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
The Executive Order triggered lawsuits from at least 22 states and various advocacy groups and affected individuals.
Universal/Nationwide Injunctions against the Birthright Citizenship Executive Order
In at least three of the cases challenging the Executive Order, the plaintiffs alleged that the Executive Order violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause, which states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
In those three cases, the plaintiffs sought to enjoin the Executive Order's implementation and enforcement, and three different federal district courts entered universal/nationwide injunctions barring U.S. Government officials from applying the Executive Order to anyone -- not just barring U.S. Government officials from applying the Executive Order to the plaintiffs in the three cases.
In all three cases, the U.S. Government sought stays of the universal injunctions, but federal appeals courts denied the Government's requests to stay them.
In March 2025, the U.S. Government moved the United States Supreme Court to limit the universal/nationwide injunctions to the plaintiffs in all three cases because, the Government argued, the federal district courts lacked equitable authority to impose universal/nationwide injunctive relief.
Notably, the U.S. Government's application to the Supreme Court did not question whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause. Instead, the issue before the Supreme Court was simply whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal/nationwide injunctions.
On June 27, 2025, in a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court held that universal/nationwide injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority Congress has given to federal courts. Accordingly, the Supreme Court granted the U.S. Government's applications to partially stay the injunctions enjoining the Executive Order, but only to the extent those injunctions were broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff in the three cases.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court's ruling effectively means that federal district courts cannot issue universal/nationwide injunctions unless necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiff(s) in a particular case and, therefore, limited universal/nationwide injunctions' uses against rules and policies affecting people who are not parties to the cases giving rise to the injunctions.
The Ruling's Effect on the Universal/Nationwide Injunction against the NCAA's NIL Recruiting Ban
Under U.S. constitutional law, Supreme Court decisions typically apply to current and future cases – not to undo or invalidate past rulings that were presumptively valid under the legal standards in effect at issuance. In Trump v. CASA, Inc., the Supreme Court did not say it was retroactively invalidating existing nationwide injunctions. Therefore, universal/nationwide injunctions issued before the June 27, 2025 Supreme Court decision, which included the February 2024 universal/nationwide injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban, remained intact, unless appealed or challenged using the new, stricter standard.
Following the Supreme Court's ruling, the NCAA could have theoretically challenged or appealed the District Court's universal/nationwide injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban by arguing that, under the Supreme Court's newly issued standard for universal/nationwide injunctions, any injunctive relief should have applied only to the athletes and/or states involved in the lawsuit giving rise to the injunction. Considering the freshness of the Supreme Court's ruling, the NCAA would likely have had strong ammunition to limit or, potentially, avoid the universal/nationwide injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban entirely
However, the three-month period immediately preceding the Supreme Court's decision potentially altered the college athletics landscape forever. During those three months, the NCAA settled the case involving the NIL Recruiting Ban. On January 31, 2025, the Tennessee Attorney General announced a settlement in principle with the NCAA to end the NIL Recruiting Ban permanently. On March 17, 2025, the Tennessee Attorney General announced a final settlement with the NCAA to end the NIL Recruiting Ban permanently. Finally, on March 21, 2025, the federal District Court made its preliminary injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban permanent and approved the parties' final settlement.
As approved by the District Court, the settlement: (i) guarantees that prospective athletes and transfer athletes can freely negotiate NL compensation before the athletes commit to a school; (ii) allows NIL collectives and other boosters to negotiate NIL deals with prospective athletes during the standard recruiting windows; (iii) enables schools to provide prospective athletes with support and assistance regarding NIL opportunities during the recruiting process; (iv) prohibits the NCAA from undermining or circumventing these provisions through future actions; and (v) requires the NCAA to publicize any proposed NIL changes for the next five years and meet with the states before any proposed NIL changes can go into effect.
Conclusion
Following a string of antitrust based litigation defeats for the NCAA, including the monumental June 6, 2025, $2.8 billion settlement in House v. NCAA, the litigation weary NCAA settled with the plaintiff states to end the NIL Recruiting Ban; and, once the federal District Court approved the settlement and entered a permanent injunction against the NIL Recruiting Ban, the NCAA likely has no further appetite or recourse to litigate the NIL Recruiting Ban because overturning court approved settlements can only happen in limited circumstances, such as if fraud played a material role in the settlement.
Accordingly, we will never know whether the NCAA's justifiable lack of appetite for continued litigation may have prevented it from ultimately prevailing in its efforts to keep the NIL Recruiting Ban in place. Instead, the flurry of activity during the three-month period between the NIL Recruiting Ban settlement and the Supreme Court decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc. may have fundamentally and forever altered the college athletic landscape.
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