College athletes received a tremendous boost to their efforts to demand compensation from the NCAA after an anti-trust suit filed against the league was allowed to proceed. A district court judge in San Fransisco denied the NCAA's motion for dismissal in the action, which is a class action lawsuit, headed by former NCAA basketball star Ed O'Bannon. With the ruling, the NCAA's licensing contracts are open for discovery.

O'Bannon and his attorneys filed the suit last July, claiming that the images of former athletes should not be used by the NCAA in television ads, video games, etc without the consent and compensation of the athlete.

"This is a truly historic day - to our knowledge, no one has ever gotten behind the scenes to examine how student-athletes' current and future rights in their images are divided up and sold," said Jon T. King of Hausfeld LLP, one of the lead lawyers representing O'Bannon.

The NCAA has licensing deals worth an estimated $4 billion dollars. Much of that money is earned on the backs of African American families, many of whom remain in poverty while coaches sign contracts worth as much as $5 million dollars per year. The case is important, because it finally allows the courts to determine whether or not the NCAA is truly an amateur organization, or if it is something more.

"We think the N.C.A.A. will defend this case saying they are protecting amateurism and trying to prevent excess commercialization," King said. "That's their mantra in regard to the big-business aspect. We think their hypocrisy will be fully exposed once their numbers are put in the public eye."

I've spoken in many cases about the NCAA and the fact that this organization has been given a license by Congress to exploit young athletes and their families. Many universities earn millions of dollars from athlete labor, but they've been allowed to engage in unconstitutional restrictions on the labor rights of athletes. In no other avenue of American life has compensation become criminalized as it has been with the NCAA. What's even more interesting is that rules designed to control the revenue stream, such as NBA and NFL age limits (to keep athletes from going professional) don't exist in sports dominated by white athletes, like tennis and baseball. If any other industry were to operate in the same manner as the NCAA, the Justice Department would tear them down immediately. It's time for a new paradigm.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the Athlete Liberation and Academic Reform Movement (ALARM). To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.