Frank Pallone: Donald Trump 'Seems Determined' To Destroy U.S. Colleges And Universities

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Energy Committee meeting to markup the SCORE Act, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) spoke about the legislation.

Transcript

00:00I'll recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Pallone, for his five minutes.

00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With all due respect to you and my colleagues, I do not think this

00:09markup is a good use of the subcommittee's time. We in Congress should be focused on the very real

00:15threats to our nation's colleges and universities, as well as everyday Americans under the Trump

00:20administration. A day rarely goes by when the Trump administration is not attacking colleges

00:25and universities. Trump continues to destroy America's higher education system with reduced

00:31federal research dollars, taxes on endowments, and cuts to federal student aid. His latest effort

00:37to interfere with college accreditation is particularly outrageous. And let's be clear,

00:42the fundamental threat to colleges and universities is not college athletes finally being able to

00:47profit from their talent. The real threat to our nation's colleges and universities is coming from

00:52inside the White House, starting with the Trump administration's attempts to cut billions in

00:57research funding from the National Institutes of Health. This has left colleges and universities

01:02across the country scrambling to figure out how they're going to continue their life-saving research

01:06on cancer, heart disease, children's health, and many more items. And these cuts, as well as reductions

01:13in graduate student funding, included in President Trump's big, ugly bill, are forcing colleges and

01:19universities to wrestle with how to fund their graduate research and science programs, which

01:24endangers our nation's global leadership in science and medical research for generations to come. And

01:30these are major crisis, yet Republicans are ignoring them and instead would rather talk about college

01:35sports. Now, we've held countless hearings about college sports over the last few years. In every

01:40hearing, we've heard that for decades the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, failed to put the

01:47health, safety, and financial interests of college athletes first. Every witness has said that allowing

01:52college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness is a good thing and represents a long

01:57overdue change in college sports. Changing the rules so that college athletes can finally profit from

02:03their name, image, and likeness was a hard-fought victory won by college athletes, not by congressional

02:08action, but through the courts and the state legislatures. So last month, the federal court approved a historic

02:14settlement in House versus NCAA, in which the NCAA agreed for the first time to allow schools to pay

02:20college athletes directly for the talent those athletes bring to the schools, the conferences, and

02:25the NCAA. And those payments are subject to a salary cap of $20.5 million per school. But instead of

02:32celebrating progress made by college athletes, the SCORE Act shuts down their ability to seek additional

02:38protection in the courts and state legislatures. It even gives the NCAA and conferences unchecked

02:44authority to roll back many of the hard-fought benefits college athletes have won in the courts

02:49and state legislatures. The bill reduces the amount of money college athletes can make from their talent,

02:54but allows schools to spend unlimited amounts of money on coaches, trainers, fancy athletic facilities,

03:01private planes for team travel, and other inducements to help recruit and retain the most talented

03:06college athletes. And this is not how you, quote, level the playing field. The SCORE Act also gives the

03:12NCAA nearly limitless and unchecked authority to govern every aspect of college athletics, including how

03:18college athletes can get paid, what happens when they want to transfer schools more than once, and how

03:23many hours they can spend training, traveling to competitions, and competing. Rather than offering college

03:29athletes new strong and forcible protections, the SCORE Act offers window dressing to address health and

03:35safety concerns and purposefully eliminates the ability of college athletes and law enforcement

03:40authorities to enforce violations of even these weak protections. The bill also fails to include

03:46meaningful protections to help ensure college athletes don't hire predatory agents, and it doesn't

03:51provide pathways for relief if they do. Instead, it simply allows the NCAA and conferences to require

03:58agents to register with those institutions. That's not going to do anything to help college athletes,

04:03and could create a full sense of security regarding the integrity of registered agents.

04:08We should not be doing anything that stifles the progress being won by the college athlete.

04:13The landscape of modern college sports is well on its way to being developed by these recent court

04:18decisions, and Congress should allow that work to play out. Don't get in the way. College sports and the

04:24opportunities it provides for young athletes cannot exist, though, and I want to emphasize that,

04:29cannot exist without colleges. If President Trump succeeds in destroying the American college

04:34and university system, which he seems determined to do, there will be no college sports. I don't know if

04:40anyone realizes that, but you have to have a college to have college sports, and the way we're going with

04:45this administration, I don't even know if there are going to be any colleges or universities or any worth

04:50fighting for once he destroys them. So with that, I yield back the balance of my time, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.

04:56Thank you very much.

Category

Transcript

Recommended