Does the obsession with March Madness lead universities to exploit black student athletes?
from The Enterprise Blog by Mark J. Perry
When you’re watching the March Madness college basketball finals tonight, consider some of the differences in college graduation rates between black and white college basketball players on the teams you’ll be watching, based on this report from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. According to the institute, it’s the “most comprehensive analysis of the academic performance of student athletes of teams participating in the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament.”
1. For the 64 teams that made it into the NCAA Division I finals and had both white and black student athletes, 65% of the black basketball players on those teams graduated in 2012, compared to a graduation rate of 90% of white players. That was an improvement over the previous year when 59% of black players and 88% of white players graduated. According to the report, “The enormous gap between the graduation rates of white and African-American student athletes narrowed by three percent from 28 percent in 2012 to 25 percent in 2013.”
Interestingly, the following 12 teams couldn’t be included in the study of white-black graduation rates because their team rosters were 100% black athletes, and included no white students during the period investigated: Southern University, Northwestern State University, Temple University, University of Memphis, James Madison University, University of Cincinnati, University of Colorado, Iona College, Virginia Commonwealth University, Georgetown University, Long Island University Brooklyn, and University of Miami (Florida).
2. For the final four teams this year, here are 2012 graduation rates by race: Michigan (57% blacks vs. 100% whites), Syracuse (43% vs. 80%), Louisville (80% vs.100%), and Wichita State (100% vs. 80%).
3. The racial disparities for graduation rates between blacks and whites are especially significant for the following universities that were among the 64 teams in the playoffs: University of Florida (0% blacks vs. 100% whites), South Dakota State (0% vs. 57%), University of Wisconsin (14% vs. 100%), Ohio State (38% vs. 100%), Iowa State (14% vs. 100%), University of Arizona (38% vs. 100%), New Mexico State (25% vs. 100%).
Questions: Is that really fair for universities like University of Florida and South Dakota State University to admit black students who in recent years have had a 0% chance of graduating, just to basically exploit them for their athletic abilities? And in many of those other programs listed above, the differences in graduation rates between black and white students are so large, that it seems obvious that the universities accept black students for admission primarily based on their athletic abilities, with much less consideration given to the low probability of those students ever graduating with a bachelor’s degree.
Why isn’t there more of a national outrage that many of our universities, who are supposed to be driven by an academic mission centered on academic success, i.e. a high chance of graduation, are apparently exploiting black students for their athletic abilities, when those students have a very low chance of graduating after being admitted? Where’s the outrage over the “academic mismatch” that results in black students being admitted to universities with such low chances of graduation in the colleges’ pursuit of being part of March Madness? |
