INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The leader of an organization that advocates for fairness in the treatment of college athletics has requested that NCAA President Mark Emmert meet via videoconference Tuesday with basketball players who launched the #NotNCAAProperty movement.
Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Association, wrote in a letter to Emmert that he and the players leading the movement want to discuss “the NCAA’s prohibition on college athlete compensation for use of their name, image and likeness as well as the unacceptable discriminatory treatment of female athletes in the NCAA March Madness Tournament and throughout NCAA member institutions.”
Jordan Bohannon of Iowa, Isaiah Livers of Michigan and Geo Baker of Rutgers helped start the movement. The hashtag #NotNCAAProperty was trending on social media.
“It’s really important what we did, to continue to create awareness,” Bohannon said. “You saw from the women’s standpoint, a couple days ago, the women speaking out about the weight room being different. If you look at that, that was just absolutely ridiculous. Look at Mark Emmert, he was nowhere to be found to answer any questions. … At the end of the day, a leader’s got to step up and lead and he wasn’t there again to state his reasoning behind it all.”
An NCAA spokesperson said in a statement Sunday that Emmert “would be happy to connect either virtually or in person when appropriate with any student-athletes who want to engage.”