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Academic events with large gatherings at the State Farm Center and Memorial Stadium – convocation and graduation of freshmen – open with this statement: “As a land-grant institution, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a responsibility to recognize the historical context in which it exists. . To remind ourselves and our community of this, we will begin this event with the following statement. We are currently on the lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Chickasaw Nations.

This reflects the deep commitment the University of Illinois shares with Big Ten schools in providing an inclusive environment for students, faculty and staff.

It would be accurate – although newsworthy – for Big Ten schools to open sporting events by stating “the historical context” in which they denied blacks from their sports teams, dating back to 1869 – when Rutgers played Princeton in the first college football game – until the 1940s; and denied women’s sports participation until the 1970s.

These are the two worlds that occupy the same space at Big Ten universities: one with inclusive sensibilities, norms and policies, the other built on a different cultural, political and public relations model.

Donald Trump’s second presidency will likely test how Big Ten schools approach the long-standing divide between their academic and athletic spheres.

In fact, the first test has already taken place. When Big Ten schools canceled the inaugural football season due to COVID-19, then-President Trump’s tweets sparked backlash from football fans. Nebraska considered leaving the Big Ten.

Schools – which treated academic and athletic spaces under similar social distancing and testing policies – quickly gave in to this pressure.

No one experienced this more directly than the athletes, who played against other teams under normal conditions of contact and proximity to each other, while taking Zoom classes with other students.

What challenges await Big Ten schools during a second Trump presidency?

His campaign attacked Kamala Harris’ support for transgender rights.

The NCAA – and its Big Ten members – have a policy closer to Harris’ position than to his own: “At its January 19, 2022 meeting, the NCAA Board of Governors updated the participation policy transgender student-athletes governing college sports. The new policy aligns the participation of transgender student-athletes with the Olympic movement.

If President Trump does not challenge the NCAA’s policy on Twitter, his Department of Education will nonetheless end its Title IX policy that extends to transgender athletes.

But this is only the beginning.

Following President Joe Biden’s precedent of firing his predecessor’s general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board, President Trump will likely fire Biden’s NLRB general counsel.

This would likely end the NLRB’s current case against the University of Southern California, Pac-12 and the NCAA.

It would also likely end the NLRB’s handling of an advocacy case involving Dartmouth basketball players who voted for a union.

The NCAA’s highest priority includes HR 8534, which would state that “a student-athlete (or former student-athlete) may not be considered an employee of any institution, conference, or association in under a federal or state law or regulation based on the student-athlete’s (or former student-athlete’s) participation in a college intercollegiate athletics program or college intercollegiate athletics competition.

Note the past tense shift here, which refers to a “former student-athlete.” This language is directly aimed at Johnson v. NCAA, the case in which a federal appeals court allowed a lawsuit to proceed under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

This is the first legal opinion authorizing a trial court to rule that college athletes must be paid minimum wage and overtime.

Trump’s NCAA agenda would give Big Ten athletic programs more freedom to increase their massive revenues while avoiding the legal liabilities and high costs of employing their front-line workers, the athletes.

But the academic side of Big Ten schools could face a different future.

Trump’s promise to eliminate the Department of Education would raise questions about the future of Pell Grants, which provide federal financial aid to needy students.

To understand the importance of Pell Grants, look at small Carroll College, a Catholic school in rural Montana. In September, the school announced that the “launch of the Pell Promise for Montana Students initiative” was “a milestone in its commitment to supporting underserved communities.”

The school adds: “The Pell Promise demonstrates Carroll College’s commitment to Catholic principles of social justice and its role in improving lives through education.

Next, consider Trump’s campaign promise to put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of health policy, allowing him to “go wild on health care.”

In October, RFK revealed: “The key that I think is — you know, what President Trump promised me is — is oversight of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its subagencies, the CDC , the FDA, the NIH and a few others, and then also the USDA, which is – which, you know, is the key to making America healthy.

Some of these agencies fund research grants for Big Ten schools. For example, Indiana University School of Medicine researchers received more than $243 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2023.

The financial impact of withdrawing federal funding on dozens of grant-funded labs, faculty positions, and Ph.D. internships and support at campus facilities are unknown.

But the trend is worrying.

How would Big Ten schools handle the financial fallout from the end of grants or funding agencies, if that materializes?

It is risky to predict the future, but we can say this with complete certainty. Big Ten schools have lived a charming double life since the conference’s inception in a Chicago hotel in 1896 – living Monday through Friday as academic institutions guided by academic ideals while living as semi-professional football operations. professional on Saturday.

So far, Big Ten schools have managed to have it both ways, as academic and athletic businesses. But the time may be approaching when they will be forced to prioritize one company directly at the expense of the other.