The 13-page lawsuit was filed Thursday in Lancaster County District Court in Nebraska.
The prosecutors in the suit are Nebraska football players Garrett Snodgrass, Garrett Nelson, Ethan Piper, Noah Pola Gates, Alante Brown, Brant Banks, Brig Banks and Jackson Hannah. They are seeking damages of less than $ 75,000 and for the fall season to recover, the lawsuit says.
While Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said earlier that the vote by the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors “was overwhelmingly supportive of postponing fall sports and will not be reconsidered,” the court said the council did not vote on canceling the fall football season . The lawsuit refers to University of Minnesota President Joan Gabel and Michigan State University President Samuel Stanley, Jr. as stated that the council did not vote on the decision to cancel or postpone the 2020 football season.
The lawsuit says this is “a case in which a powerful collegiate athletics conference claims its student athletes have no rights.”
“Although its decision significantly and directly affects the rights and opportunities of student-athletes at its member institutions, the Big Ten has rejected calls for transparency and refuses to provide documents supporting its claim that a vote was taken or that a good process was followed, “the lawsuit states. “As a result of the failure of the process, the student athlete prosecutors have suffered irreparable damage.”
CNN reached out to the Big Ten for comment on the lawsuit.
The conference announced on August 11 that it is postponing the 2020-21 fall sports season – just six days after it released a football schedule – due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Warren said that day before his conference, “it became very clear that there was too much uncertainty about potential medical risks to compete with our student-athletes this fall.”
On August 19, Warren said in an open letter that the Big Ten had created a Task Force for Return to Competition to plan as soon as possible for the return of fall competition.
“When evaluating winter / spring models, we will examine many factors, including the number of football games that can be reasonably played in a full calendar year from a health perspective while maintaining a premier competitive experience for our student athletes culminating in a Big Ten Championship, ”Warren said in the letter.
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