Editor’s note: Richard Lapchick is a human rights activist, pioneer for racial equality, expert on sports issues, scholar and author.
March might signal the time when college sports looks to be at its best. With March Madness under way for both men’s and women’s basketball, the excitement is palpable.
That is why we are releasing today the 2022 College Sport Racial and Gender Report Card, which is produced by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida (UCF). While college sport certainly shines on the courts and playing fields, it has a long way to go to match that excellence in its hiring practices. So many fans root for the underdog in a game, but university leaders continue to go with the long standing power structure: white men. Women and people of color are too often on the sidelines.
College sports received a C for racial hiring practices when it decreased slightly from 75.1% in 2021 to 73.3% in 2022. College sports also received a C for gender hiring, with 74.1%, which was a slight increase from 2021 when it was 72.8%. The combined grade was a C with 73.7%. That was down from 74.0% in 2021. In other words, overall, equal opportunity hiring practices are getting worse instead of improving.
As we look…
