Racial climate for athletes considered by Faculty Athletics Committee

The stories range from books like “The New Plantation” to articles such as “How Colleges Fail Black Football Players.”

College athletics programs have been credited with everything from giving low-income students the opportunity to get a college education to accusations of exploiting those same players, barring them from pay for their work.

The Faculty Athletics Committee took on this conundrum Tuesday in a discussion led by exercise and sports science professor Deborah Stroman, the sole black member of the group.

Only 50 percent of black male athletes graduate within six years from colleges in the seven major NCAA Division I sports conferences, compared to 67 percent of student-athletes overall, according to a report the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education.

And at UNC, an academic scandal put what was formerly the Department of African and Afro-American Studies in the national spotlight for no-show classes. Since then, many professors and students have worried about the racial implications of how the scandal is portrayed.

“When we talk about, ‘Whose department?’ … It’s ugly,” Stroman said. “They say, ‘Your area is not worthy.’ In particular I’m talking about the latest attacks on men’s basketball.”

The issue is multifaceted, members said, and doesn’t just end with lagging graduation rates of athletes — it includes the overall low enrollment of black male students at UNC.

A white-dominated culture could be a reason why black students might not enroll or later drop out, Stroman said.

“The climate is not conducive to embracing or celebrating,” she said, adding that UNC could do more to diversify its events and campus groups.

Sociology professor Andrew Perrin, a member of the committee, said he believed the argument that black athletes were sometimes exploited.

“When we’re not offering an adequate education to young black males who come here. We’re exploiting them,” he said.

UNC has increased the amount of academic support for student-athletes, such as with My Academic Plan, a program started last fall that provides individualized support to freshmen.

“But the other side is question number two, ‘Are we holding their hands too much?’” Stroman said. “When you expect more, you get more. When you provide all that support, maybe it works against them.”

Chancellor Carol Folt said she was encouraged by the new conversation surrounding student causes, including both racism and sexual assault on campus.

“We’re in a wave of time where people who have felt on the outside or marginalized are actually speaking up,” she said.

Stroman advised committee members to be more cognizant of racism at UNC and beyond.

“Spend time with people who don’t look like you. See color. One of the most painful and ineffective tactics is to walk around in a world when you are color blind.”

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