Dartmouth basketball players file petition seeking to unionize - ESPN

BOSTON — Men's basketball players at Dartmouth College have become the latest college athletes to challenge the status quo by attempting to unionize.

A petition filed with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday by the Service Employees International Union identified 15 players from the Ivy League school as seeking representation. The SEIU was listed as the petitioner, with Dartmouth College and its board of trustees identified as the employer.

Dartmouth College spokesperson Jana Barnello provided a statement to The Associated Press, confirming the petition had been filed seeking to represent the players and declaring it was under review. The petition has been assigned to NLRB's Boston region, according to the filing's online listing.

«We have the utmost respect for our students and for unions generally,» the statement said. «We are carefully considering this petition with the aim of responding promptly yet thoughtfully in accordance with Dartmouth's educational mission and priorities.»

Northwestern University's football team made a bid to form the first union for college athletes in 2014.

It was a move that was met with almost immediate opposition by college conferences and schools that argued it would fundamentally alter a system in which hundreds of millions of dollars are distributed annually to conferences and schools.

The move ultimately ended in August 2015 with the NLRB board ruling unanimously that creating a new system of union and nonunion college teams would lead to different standards from school to school. It said a system with varied money for players and things like practice time would create competitive imbalance.

That decision contrasted with an earlier decision by a regional NLRB in Chicago,