HUGE: Dartmouth Basketball Players Vote To Unionize

The Dartmouth College men's basketball team voted Tuesday to unionize, becoming the first-ever U.S. collegiate athletes to do so—but the private New Hampshire university is mounting a challenge to the move that could end up in federal court.

Dartmouth players voted 13-2 to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 560 in an election supervised by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the university's human resources department.

"Today is a big day for our team," said Dartmouth players Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil, two leaders of the organizing effort. "We stuck together all season and won this election. It is self-evident that we, as students, can also be both campus workers and union members. Dartmouth seems to be stuck in the past. It's time for the age of amateurism to end."

Haskins told the Associated Press that "I think this is just the start" and that the Dartmouth vote "is going to have a domino effect on other cases across the country, and that could lead to other changes."

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