Dartmouth College lawyers argued Thursday that the Ivy League school’s basketball players should not be considered employees because they are unpaid members of a money-losing program whose need-based scholarships don’t depend on their participation or talent.
In a National Labor Relations Board hearing to determine whether the team should be allowed to unionize, school attorney Joe McConnell said that the classification of the players as “student-athletes” — whatever it merits for big-money college teams elsewhere — is actually appropriate at Dartmouth.
