Plans being developed by many major college athletic departments on how to distribute new direct payments to athletes would violate Title IX laws, according to a memo released Thursday by the Department of Education.

The memo provides some long-awaited guidance on how gender equity laws will apply in a new era for college sports that is set to begin this summer. It's unclear whether the U.S. Department of Education will interpret Title IX laws the same way when incoming President Donald Trump's administration appoints new officials in the near future.

The NCAA and its power conferences have agreed to allow each school to make direct payments of up to $20.5 million to athletes through name, image and likeness deals as one of the terms of a pending antitrust settlement. Many schools from these power conferences have plans in place to allocate the bulk of their money to the highest-paid sports players -- primarily football and men's basketball players.

In some cases, athletic directors have publicly stated that they intend to provide more than 75% of these funds to their football players.

However, the Office for Civil Rights - the arm of the Department of Education that enforces Title IX laws - said in a memo Thursday that these future payments should be considered "athletic financial aid" and therefore must be shared proportionally between male and female athletes.

“When schools provide athletic financial aid in the form of scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of a student-athlete’s NIL, such aid must also be provided to male and female athletes on a pro rata basis,” the memo states.

Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education programs. The law requires schools to provide varsity athletic opportunities that are commensurate with the overall gender composition of the student body. It also requires schools to provide financial aid proportional to the number of male and female students participating in sports on campus. If 50% of a school's athletes are women, then 50% of the school's financial aid to athletes must be allocated to women.

The memo does not provide clear guidance on how payments to booster collectives closely tied to schools would be affected by Title IX laws. It noted that the department does not consider funds provided by third parties in NIL transactions to be athletic financial aid, such as future revenue share payments or scholarships. But if funding from private sources ends up creating a disparity in athletic programs, the NIL agreement could "trigger a school's Title IX obligations."

Male and female athletes should also receive equal publicity, including from sports information personnel, quantity and quality of publicity, and even social media posts. The memo states that if schools fail to provide equitable exposure, these students risk losing zero opportunity. ESPN reported more than a year ago that 55 sports departments (or 84 percent of the then-Power 5) mentioned men's teams more often than women's teams on their primary account (then Twitter), while women's teams Men's teams are more likely to be mentioned. The social media manager must be shared with other teams.

While the Department of Education has the authority to punish schools that fail to meet Title IX requirements, historically all of the cases regarding how the law applies to college sports have come from athletes who sued their schools claiming unequal treatment. There are also multiple pending Title IX lawsuits related to third-party NIL compensation. The memo, issued in the last two days of the department's administration, could provide some fodder for potential future lawsuits if any athletes sue their schools over future direct payments to athletes.

“I would be surprised if schools that have announced plans to implement programs other than proration continue to pursue those plans,” said Arthur Bryant, an attorney who is filing a Title IX lawsuit against the University of Oregon. “They Will knowingly and deliberately plan to violate the law.”

Bryant said he believed the department's proposed clarifying language also had the potential to derail a pending antitrust settlement. A hearing to finalize the settlement is scheduled for April.