My colleague Marc Tracy brought up the issue of a players’ union — and whether Emmert was opposed to player activism when it extended to other issues, like social justice. “The notion of athletes as employees who are unionized to negotiate for, you know, pay and benefits,” he replied, “is dramatically different than a group of students expressing their views and opinions on a social-justice question.” One could argue, of course, that athletes standing up for their rights is a social-justice issue, but never mind.

Emmert was asked a number of times about the association’s continuing investigation into the sham class scandal at the University of North Carolina (he wouldn’t comment) and whether Syracuse’s appearance in the Final Four, so soon after the university had been punished for infractions that also involved academic fraud, suggested that the N.C.A.A. penalties didn’t really have much potency. (Emmert disagreed.) Although I’m sure they are delighted to be here, the appearance of the Tar Heels and the Orange in the Final Four has served as a reminder that the N.C.A.A.’s mantra — education before athletics — is itself a sham.

Which brings me back to the transfer rule. What you mostly hear from critics of the rule is that it’s hypocritical: Coaches, after all, aren’t restricted in moving from one college to another, so why are the players? Sometimes a coach leaves right after recruiting a player — yet the player can’t leave. Jay Bilas, the former Duke player and current ESPN basketball analyst, told me that when he had once brought this up to the N.C.A.A. during his playing days, he was told that “you are joining an institution, not a coach.”

But it is more than just the hypocrisy. The transfer rule exemplifies the way the N.C.A.A. and the college sports establishment strip athletes of rights that our country’s laws guarantee not only to other college students, but to all Americans. There are few N.C.A.A. rules that are as blatantly unfair.

At the University of Georgia, which had routinely granted transfer waivers, the new football coach, Kirby Smart, decided to change the policy. When running back A. J. Turman asked to be released recently, Smart told him that he could not transfer to Miami or Florida, even though Turman had grown up in Florida. Smart didn’t want “to set a precedent,” he said. Coaches often say that they don’t want athletes to be able to follow a coach who has left to run another program. Or that, because they have trained and taught an athlete, the player somehow owes the college and shouldn’t be allowed to leave.