Cases & Developments

Opinion granting Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, a basketball player at the University of Illinois who was projected as an NBA lottery draft pick and who has significant income from a name, image, likeness (NIL) contract, brought Title IX and Due Process claims against the University after it suspended him from athletic activities following receipt of an arrest warrant related to a sexual assault he allegedly committed in Kansas. The Division of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA) suspended him pursuant to its policy permitting it to act “upon receipt of credible information that a student-athlete may have engaged in misconduct … [that], if substantiated, would constitute a Major Offense.” The court declined to order the University to apply its Title IX policy, finding that it did not have control over his Kansas trip, which was for personal social reasons, and that he had not alleged that the decision not to apply the policy was based on his gender. It granted plaintiff’s motion based on his due process claim, holding that (1) based on the terms of the University’s student conduct policy he had a property interest in not being suspended from the team without good cause, and (2) his projected draft pick status and his NIL deal made his occupational liberty interests more than speculative. It then held that he was likely to succeed on his claim that the University denied him due process when it suspended him from play under its DIA policy, which afforded fewer procedural protections than its general student conduct process.