Dartmouth College Basketball Players Halt Effort to Unionize

The Dartmouth College basketball players who voted in March to unionize withdrew their petition on Tuesday, a move largely intended to preserve the favorable federal judgment that they had secured and that could have been in jeopardy once President-elect Donald J. Trump took office.

The players were the first college athletes granted the right to unionize by a federal labor official and the ensuing 13-to-2 vote by the men’s team in favor of forming a union seemed like a pivotal moment in the mounting legal challenges to the college sports model. But Dartmouth refused to negotiate with the players and appealed the ruling by the National Labor Relations Board regional director.

Now with Mr. Trump, a Republican, set to return to the White House in less than three weeks, the Service Employees International Union Local 560, which represents the Dartmouth players, recognized that a Republican-leaning N.L.R.B. might not be as friendly to their argument that the athletes should be classified as hourly workers just like other students who have jobs on campus.

“While our strategy is shifting, we will continue to advocate for just compensation, adequate health coverage and safe working conditions for varsity athletes at Dartmouth,” Chris Peck, president of the S.E.I.U. Local 560, said in a statement.

Instead, Mr. Peck said, his union will support Ivy League athletes more broadly by fighting the N.C.A.A.’s pursuit of an antitrust exemption in Congress, supporting an Ivy League players association and taking legal and administrative steps to buttress college athletes’ rights.

Dartmouth said in a statement that it supported the players’ decision to withdraw their petition, reiterating the school’s stance that classifying them as employees lacked legal precedent. Dartmouth “has deep respect for our 1,500 union colleagues,” the statement added. “In this isolated instance, however, we did not believe unionization was appropriate.”