Rights-based Approaches to the Treatment of Student Athletes

Abstract

The place of student athletes in university sports programs follows Foucault's notions of power structures controlling bodies and minds, with university sports subjugating student athletes in systems encompassing exercise, nutrition, rest, social life, and academics tied to expectations for behavior. The subordinate positions of student athletes renders them vulnerable to abuse by coaches, administrators, and faculty holding higher positions in the university hierarchy. The present analysis argues for a rights-based approach to prescribe norms regarding the treatment of student athletes, using international human rights as a source to guide standards for appropriate conduct by university sports programs toward student athletes. The analysis draws on the scholarship studying the connection between human rights and sports, extending the literature to identify norms for university sports programs vis-a-vis student athletes.