A Comparative Analysis of the Lack of Contractual Protections in Female Dominated Opportunities: Collegiate Competitive Dancers and Cheerleaders Compared to NCAA Student-Athletes and National Pageant Organization Titleholders Compared to Employees/Independent Contractors

Authors

• Abigail Church, University of Mississippi School of Law

Abstract

The lack of contractual protections and regulations throughout female-dominated opportunities is abundantly clear in the collegiate competitive dance & cheer and the national pageant organization titleholders. Collegiate competitive dancers and cheerleaders have no standardized contractual requirements regarding their commitment to an academic institution or their engagement in NIL opportunities. Their NCAA recognized student-athlete counterparts, on the other hand, have extensive regulations and protections in place for both categories of contracts. In the pageant industry, pageant titleholders have no protection against the all-too-common procedural and substantive unconscionability of their service agreements, which can be found in confidentiality and arbitration clauses. In the parallel employment context, however, federal regulations and state case law alike protect members of the workforce from contracts with the same, or lower, levels of unconscionability that titleholders face.

Action is needed to address this disadvantageous contractual trend. Institutional regulatory action from the individual colleges and universities and the individual pageant organizations is an attainable first step on the road to a solution. Action from governing bodies, such as the NCAA and the Corporation for National and Community Service, is another plausible launching pad for a long-term solution. The collegiate competitive dance and cheer and the national pageant organization titleholder landscapes are just two small facets of the much broader societal issue of the lack of contractual protections in female dominated opportunities, but imminent action is necessary to begin paving a way to resolve a long-standing inequity. Further areas of research include the loose protections professional cheerleaders receive from individual contractor agreements, while performing more synonymously with their player counterparts who are highly protected by the layers of regulations surrounding employee contracts.

Recommended Citation

Abigail Church, A Comparative Analysis of the Lack of Contractual Protections in Female Dominated Opportunities: Collegiate Competitive Dancers and Cheerleaders Compared to NCAA Student-Athletes and National Pageant Organization Titleholders Compared to Employees/Independent Contractors, 32 Mich. J. Gender & L. 151 (2025).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjgl/vol32/iss2/2