Today’s guest columnist is Chris Corr of Troy University.
When the Board of Regents at the University of Oklahoma and University of Georgia initially filed an antitrust suit against the NCAA in 1981, United States District Judge Lee Roy West recused himself immediately. The lawsuit—which served as a watershed moment in the history of NCAA litigation—concerned the association’s monopoly over television rights and would become the first case challenging NCAA authority argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.
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As a native Oklahoman and graduate of the University of Oklahoma, West held no reservations about his inability to separate his loyalty to the school and his obligation to issue an impartial ruling. In an interview from April 2011, West detailed that his allegiance to OU began as a student there and grew due to Oklahoma’s success in football; his personal friendship with three-time national championship-winning Sooners head football coach Barry Switzer; and his close friendship with All-American and Oklahoma football team captain Norman McNabb.
Like most collegians, Lee Roy West had immense pride for his alma mater. Unlike most collegians, Judge West could alter the legal scales with his opinions and rulings.
West’s 1981 recusal underscores new findings by researchers at Troy University and the University of South Carolina’s College Sport Research Institute (CSRI), who examined the demographic backgrounds and collegiate connections of judges who have issued rulings in cases involving the NCAA.
Between 1973 and 2020, a total of 174 federal judges issued 234 rulings on the NCAA. Of those decisions, judges sided with college sports’ governing body 63% of the time.
Within this group of cases, the research found that judges’ demographic and educational backgrounds seemed to play a significant role. For instance, judges born in states home to a Southeastern Conference athletics program were 43% more likely to rule in…