CSC’s Eric Pearson on the HBCU Study
Here’s what Eric Pearson, chairman of the College Sports Council, had to say about the study the CSC released earlier today concerning Title IX and historically black colleges and universities:
“We’re not asking for punishment; we’re pointing out how hard it is for HBCUs to comply with proportionality,” council Chairman Eric Pearson says. He argues HBCUs are faced with the prospect of cutting men’s teams at a time when they are trying to attract and retain male students.
To read the release, click here. For a look at the study itself, click here.
MEAC/SWAC Sports Main Street is now following the story as well asNAICU Newsroom.
UPDATE: More from Black News Junkie and The Black Informant.
UPDATE: HBCU SportsBlog chimes in:
It’s tiring to discuss these over-arching problems that are unique to HBCUs, when the ultimate issue is that HBCUs themselves are a microcosm of a larger cultural crisis. It’s easy to dismiss HBCUs as non-compliant with gender equity when it comes to sports, but no one takes time to analyze the sociological aspects of why black men do not attend college.
It’s convenient to say that sports teams at black colleges are unequal, but it’s inconvenient to discuss what solutions will be present if money-making men’s sports are cut for gender equity, when men’s sports are one of the primary fund-raising branches of any black college.
Some of the most prominent athletic programs in black college sports are mentioned in the report as failing compliance standards. Howard University would need to cut 82 roster slots of men’s sports to meet Title IX guidelines based on enrollment ratio. Equity should be the ambition of every progressive institution of higher education, but not by passively ignoring the larger crisis of African-American men in the United States.
Indeed. More later.
UPDATE: More from the Chronicle of Higher Education news blog.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Somebody is missing the point.
AFTERNOON UPDATE: Phi Beta Cons and 100% Injury Rate have noticed.