Do Colleges Need to Be Need Blind?

northwesty
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 15:47:46 +0000

“Perhaps, but these kinds of sports do not make up “most” of the intercollegiate sports found at Ivy League schools.”

Totally and completely incorrect.

Other than football and soccer (about 1/3 AA each), pretty much every sport in the Ivy League trends strongly to suburban and white. Which will tend to trend upper SES. Same will go for the NESCAC type of liberal arts colleges.

The Boston Globe looked at Harvard’s teams back in 2007.

Of 19 Harvard men’s teams, 12 were all white – baseball, heavyweight crew, lightweight crew, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, squash, swimming/diving, tennis, volleyball, sailing, skiing. Fencing, water polo, wrestling, track and basketball had 3 AAs or less.

I know race is not an exact equivalent for SES, but you get the picture.

“Once you take out baseball, basketball and football it’s decidedly high SES.”

Actually, college baseball today is perhaps the single whitest college sport there is. Like many other youth sports, it is heavily influenced by the club team industrial complex. Surpisingly, college baseball today may be even less diverse than lacrosse and ice hockey.