Eight players from the University of Nebraska football team are suing the Big Ten Conference, requesting an order to invalidate the Big Ten’s decision to not play football this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The 13-page lawsuit was filed Thursday in Lancaster County District Court in Nebraska.
The plaintiffs in the suit are Nebraska football players Garrett Snodgrass, Garrett Nelson, Ethan Piper, Noa 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 be restored, the lawsuit says.
While Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren previously has said that the vote by the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors was “overwhelmingly in support of postponing fall sports and will not be revisited,” the lawsuit says that the council did not vote on whether to cancel the fall football season.
The lawsuit references University of Minnesota president Joan Gabel and Michigan State University president Samuel Stanley, Jr. as being quoted that the council did not vote on the decision to cancel or postpone the 2020 fall football season.
The lawsuit says this “a case in which a powerful collegiate athletic conference contends that its student athletes have no rights.”
“Even though 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 proper process was followed,” the lawsuit states. “As a result of the failure of process, the Student Athlete Plaintiffs have been irreparably harmed.”
CNN has reached out to the Big Ten for comment on the lawsuit.