At the same time, Trump is opening a second front in higher education, warning that name, image, and likeness payments could collapse the college system that feeds America’s sports and Olympic pipelines. His promised “all-encompassing” executive order on NIL is designed not just to pressure Congress, but to drag the courts back into a fight that had seemed settled. Together, these moves reveal a presidency leaning fully on executive power—willing to gamble on lawsuits, economic disruption, and institutional upheaval to impose a new definition of fairness, merit, and amateurism on two of the country’s most sensitive battlegrounds.
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