I heard a story on the radio, there’s a class-action civil rights suit brought by historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The NCAA organizes tons of college sports tournaments (notably the NCAA basketball tournament), and it has some rules. Part of those rules is the Academic Performance Program (APP) which, if I heard correctly, assigns each school a number called the Academic Progress Rate (APR). If the school doesn’t meet a minimum APR, they can be penalized by having practice time cut, or even banned from postseason tournaments.
The gist of it is that HBCUs say the APR is unfair. They were saying something like 6% of universities are HBCUs but 70% of the postseason bans go to HBCUs. They were saying it is unfair to use the same academic standards on HBCUs as other institutions because the mission of HBCUs is to take in low income, first generation, at-risk students. So, like, HBCUs are starting from lower graduation rates and lower GPAs than predominantly white institutions. Therefore it is wrong to require student-athletes at HBCUs to meet the same minimum graduation rate and GPA requirements as predominantly white institutions. This I don’t find convincing in the least, but presumably some people do.
One student from Savanna State University says he and his whole college was banned from the NCAA tournament because the team four years earlier didn’t meet academic requirements. I think that is wrong, it is an affront to the principle of personal responsibility.
If the HBCUs have historically lower graduation rates due to the core mission of those schools, I would consider that a mitigating factor in the graduation rates of their student athletes. As in, one of the reasons behind the APP is, according to their FAQ, a concern about the academic success of scholarship athletes. If scholarship athletes in HBCUs are as close to the norm of the overall school’s graduation rate as any other school, then I don’t see why sanctions are required. HBCUs take at-risk students, their athletics should not be penalized for doing the same.
The FAQ notes that schools are allowed to argue for adjusting their score, which I assume is why Kentucky Basketball can continue when almost half of their athletes leave the school without graduating. Why does it not surprise me that they can change their APR without a problem?
If that’s the rationale behind the program, it does make sense to compare the graduation/retention rates of student athletes to the school overall. Don’t you think that should be explicitly worked in to the APR calculation? As I understand it, the school’s overall graduation rate doesn’t factor into APR at all.
I’ve read that they count student-athletes who get drafted (eg: Towns, Adebayo) as if they did not drop out.
One thing to note is that a policy can be deemed discriminatory based on its outcome, not on intent. If the outcome is that a disproportionate number of Black athletes are impacted by the policy, it can be deemed discriminatory.
Explanations like the mission of HBCUs are reasonable, and highlight why equity and not equality should be standard in many policies.
It would depend on the goal the program is supposed to achieve. If the goal is to make sure student-athletes on scholarships are equipped for a successful post-college career, as I believe it is (could be wrong!), I just don’t find the whole discriminatory-based-on-outcome argument convincing. Because it wouldn’t make sense to compromise the goal of the program to avoid disparate impact, in terms of priority I put the former above the latter.
If the goal is to make sure student athletes on scholarships are at least academically on par with the rest of the student body at that school, it makes perfect sense to factor in the graduation rate at the school or make other per-school adjustments.
It makes sense because the NCAA doesn’t actually care about students being, you know, students and getting degrees. This is intended to give them a veneer of respectability, so that they can claim their athletes are “really” students. The fact that the burden falls on HBCUs who are trying to help at risk kids rather than the big name, big $$$ programs who give scholarships to “students” who have absolutely no interest in academics is a feature, not a bug.
If they actually want academics to matter, then yes they would work the school’s retention rate into the APR, and also punish schools who openly court students who are not actually students at all.
Disparate Impact isn’t my argument- it’s a form of discrimination prevention baked into many state and federal laws. It doesn’t mean the policy is de facto discriminatory, but can be part of the supportive argument that a policy is discriminatory.
I see. If you are just noting that the outcome can be discriminatory without intent, I would go further and say the outcome (the policy) is discriminatory regardless of intention. Based on what I heard over the radio,
something like 6% of universities are HBCUs but 70% of the postseason bans go to HBCUs
That’s exactly the point. A neutral policy can be discriminatory based on outcome. And there can be legitimate reasons to not keep the policy neutral but apply in a differentiated way, to avoid the discriminatory outcome.
For example on my campus we had a neutral policy that dorm assignments were made based on when we received the housing deposit. The best dorms filled first.
A capacity analysis revealed that our lesser dorms had a disproportionate number of Black and students of color, because we actively recruited low income students from those demographics. But as low income, it was harder to get the housing deposit together early, so they ended up in the least desirable spaces. No intent to discriminate, neutral policy, crummy outcome. We adjusted the policy so it was more equitable, which had broader impact of making it better for all low income students.
I’m having trouble applying this to the NCAA situation, assuming the program’s mission is to make sure student-athletes are well equipped for a successful post-college career.
We could, as Cheesesteak and I were discussing above, factor in the school’s graduation rate. That would conceivably be more equitable, on the other hand, it seems to run against the mission of the Academic Performance Program. So with regard to that particular proposal, assuming the purpose of the APP is as I’ve written above, I think it’s not worth it.
Perhaps one way to level this out would be to factor in the team’s performance to that of the school overall. So if the dropout rate of the team is in line with the school, that would be neutral. But if the team’s dropout rate is much higher than the school, that would count against them. And perhaps the same with academic eligibility. If the GPA of the athlete was compared to the overall GPA of the student body, then schools which had applicants from poorer-quality educational backgrounds wouldn’t be unfairly impacted.
I don’t think a school could exploit this system very much to gain an advantage for their teams. I suppose if they wanted to encourage all their students to have poor GPAs and dropout early it could help their teams, but that would hurt the school overall.
This would absolutely be more equitable, and I don’t think schools will abuse it. Institutions with higher overall grades might see themselves banned from postseason tournaments for recruiting athletes who can’t keep up with the rest of their class, but I see that as a plus. Currently the schools have to make sure their athletes make a 2.3 GPA, at least for division I. Otherwise it hurts their APR.
But I don’t think this helps ensure student-athletes are well equipped for a successful post-college career. If an HBCU has a graduation rate of say 35% and an average GPA under 2.0, now they can field players with mostly failing grades who are very likely to drop out before completing their degree. Is the trade-off worth it? I don’t think it is, but I try to read with an open mind.
I think what would prevent this is that a school would have trouble staying open if their graduation rate and overall GPA was so low. Students wouldn’t want to attend and companies would be reluctant to hire graduates from that school. Assuming the school is trying to be a real college, they would be working to improve these metrics on their own regardless of any benefits to the team.
I think it part is to ensure the students aren’t harmed by participating in NCAA sports. So if their outcomes are comparable to the larger student policy, the NCAA has done their due diligence.
The regional accreditors, who oversee the colleges performance as a whole, can address the graduation rate and if they serving their student population.
It’s because the demographic groups (including eg: wealth) that attend HBCUs have, on average, lower graduation rates and GPAs. These demographics do better at HBCUs than at other institutions, but not well enough to compare to other demographics in non-HBCUs. In 2010 it the average HBCU 6-year grad rate was reported at 31% compared to 52% for other institutions (Richards et al, 2012). During the 2015-2016 school year it was “just over 30 percent” compared to “nearly 55 percent” (Gordon et al, 2020). Websites sometimes cite the Thurgood Marshall College Fund as saying the grad rate right now is at 35%.
My Google-fu is failing me on the average GPA students maintain at HBCUs.