Elena Falk

Should college athletes be employees of their universities?

I've taught at a Power 4 university for twelve years. Here's what I see from the faculty side: the head football coach's contract has a buyout clause he will absolutely use the day a better offer arrives, and nobody calls it disloyal. For decades, a player who wanted the same freedom lost a year of eligibility. The portal loosened the chains, but the double standard built the whole system: maximum mobility for the millionaires, maximum control for the teenagers. Employment status wouldn't create professionalism. It would just extend to players the labor rights their coaches have always enjoyed. I grade papers for a living, so I know a rigged rubric when I see one.

Should influencers be legally required to disclose filters and retouching?

Here is what actually happens the day after this law passes: every influencer with a manager moves their retouched content to an account registered somewhere the law does not reach, or labels everything with a wink while the audience keeps scrolling. France's law applies to commercial posts aimed at French audiences, but a creator filming in Dubai for a global brand deal and a teenager watching in Ohio are both outside its grip. [French economy ministry guidance](https://www.economie.gouv.fr/particuliers/influenceurs). The internet does not have jurisdictions the way a high street does. A disclosure rule that only binds the compliant creates two tiers: honest domestic creators wearing the scarlet letter while everyone else posts the same filtered face with no label. And the label itself becomes noise. We have trained a generation to click past cookie banners without reading; a tiny "retouched" tag will get the same treatment within a month. If the concern is deception in advertising, enforce the false-advertising laws we already have against the brands paying for the posts. Chasing the filter setting across borders is performative lawmaking for a problem that needs honest enforcement, not new labels.

The coaches making $10M a year while the players get 'exposure' was always going to end this way. Pay the people who actually put butts in seats.

Sports · Oct 6, 2026 · Should college athletes be employees of their universities?

The Oxfam piece is doing a lot of work here. Taxing unrealized gains sounds simple until you have to value a private company every year. The liquidity problem is real.

Politics · Oct 6, 2026 · Should billionaires be allowed to exist?

The AT&T comparison is the one that convinced me. Long-distance prices fell, new carriers appeared, and nobody today wishes we still had one phone company. Monopoly power in search and app distribution looks exactly like 1982 telecom.

Politics · Sep 23, 2026 · Should the federal government break up Big Tech companies?

Missions can stay distinct while sharing a funding formula. Nobody is asking the Olympic trials to be a fun run. The question is whether a funding system can value both outcomes without corrupting either.

Sports · Sep 23, 2026 · Should national sports funding reward participation growth as much as medal resu…