A California federal court has delivered a significant decision assessing the scope of the California Interscholastic Federation's (CIF) authority over high school sports, offering important guidance on the contours of the state-action immunity doctrine and its broader implications for private regulatory bodies.
In Calhoun v. California Interscholastic Federation et al., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California upheld CIF's traditional amateurism and transfer rules under the state-action immunity doctrine but refused to extend that protection to CIF's prohibition on student-athletes licensing their name, image and likeness (NIL) while referencing their school identities.1 The ruling keeps CIF's compensation caps and transfer restrictions intact for now but subjects its NIL ban to full scrutiny under the antitrust laws – a development that could reshape how high school athletes monetize their personal brands.
The lawsuit, brought by former high school athlete Dominik Calhoun on behalf of a putative class of California student-athletes, alleged that CIF's compensation limits, transfer restrictions and NIL rules unlawfully suppress opportunities for student-athletes to earn compensation – for example, being paid to appear in an advertisement while wearing their team uniform – and move freely between schools. Calhoun's NIL-related allegations mirror the recent wave of challenges that dismantled core NCAA compensation restrictions. With those NIL precedents looming large, the suit signals that CIF's rules may be vulnerable to the same market-based scrutiny now transforming other levels of amateur sports.
In California, school districts oversee interscholastic athletics, but CIF – a voluntary association that governs roughly 1,600 public and private high schools – wields the rulemaking and enforcement authority that shapes how those competitions are run. Although CIF is a private, dues-funded entity that operates independently of the state, California law recognizes its regulatory role and subjects it to open-meeting rules, public records access and periodic legislative reporting. CIF's rules must also conform to statutory directives governing recruitment, undue influence, discrimination and athlete eligibility. Yet despite this statutory recognition, the court rejected CIF's threshold argument that it is an arm of the state entitled to sovereign immunity.
The court's finding that CIF was not an instrumentality of the state government set the stage for a rule-by-rule analysis under the Supreme Court's Midcal state-action framework.2 As a private actor seeking Midcal immunity, CIF had to establish that each restraint was grounded in a clearly articulated state policy to displace competition and was actively supervised by the state. That standard is met only when the Legislature intended to substitute regulation for market forces and the restraint is the logical and foreseeable result of that choice.3
Rejecting any notion that CIF's regulatory scheme operates as a single package, the court evaluated each rule independently. CIF's amateurism-driven compensation caps – $250 for regular-season awards and $500 for postseason awards – survived Midcal, as did its transfer restrictions. In the court's view, California's robust statutory framework governing recruitment, undue influence and eligibility made these restraints not only consistent with state policy but also a foreseeable extension of it.
But CIF's ban on student-athletes licensing their NIL while referencing school-affiliated identities did not hold up under Midcal. Unlike the statutory scaffolding that supports CIF's amateurism and transfer rules, California law does not regulate – let alone prohibit – high school NIL commercialization. With no clear legislative footing – and no basis to view the ban as a foreseeable extension of California's regulatory framework – the court held that state-action immunity did not apply. That means the NIL rule can now be subject to full antitrust review, where its chances of survival may turn on whether CIF can show sufficient procompetitive justifications under the rule-of-reason framework.
Ultimately, the court dismissed all claims against the media defendants and the antitrust challenges to CIF's amateurism and transfer rules but allowed Calhoun to amend his complaint and replead his lone surviving theory: lost NIL compensation. The court also emphasized the need for evidence addressing whether NIL for California high school athletes is reasonably interchangeable with NIL of athletes in other states or whether elite prospects' NIL commands distinct market value – themes that have driven market-definition analyses in similar collegiate litigation.
Calhoun is a reminder that state-action immunity is a scalpel, not a shield. As NIL opportunities begin to reach high school athletes, the Calhoun decision points to a broader judicial interest in examining how private associations justify compensation-related restrictions. The ruling suggests that courts will look more carefully at whether organizations acting as de facto regulators can identify clear statutory support for the restrictions they impose, particularly when those rules shape the contours of emerging markets.
Footnotes
1 Calhoun v. Cal. Interscholastic Fed. et al., No. 25-cv-04603, 2026 WL 74278 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 9, 2025).
2 Cal. Retail Liquor Dealers Ass'n v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U.S. 97, 105 (1980); see also N.C. State Bd. of Dental Exam'rs v. FTC, 574 U.S. 494, 503–04 (2015).
3 S. Motor Carriers Rate Conf., Inc. v. United States, 471 U.S. 48, 64 (1985); City of Columbia v. Omni Outdoor Advert., Inc., 499 U.S. 365, 370–71 (1991).
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