Handwriting on the wall

The purpose of this panel; is to deny opportunity to African Americans.

The phenomenon of 10-year-old receiving BA from a four-year educational institute no one raises an eyebrow, 100% of those 10-year-old happens to be Caucasian.It is clear the Caucasian have the lion share of this home schooling, vocational and alternate schooling – no one sees it as an eyesore.

However when an African Americans student-athlete makes it – Caucasians come out woodwork to dig dirt on that student-athlete and sling mud on him – I have never seen anyone digging for dirt on any educational institute as to why and what compelled that educational institute to award its prestigious credentials to a 10 year old.

The answer – skin color.

David Robertson, Professor at SUNY, at 4:24 pm EST on December 28, 2005

An education to the highest bidder

I can imagine what kind of decisions will come from a panel that has only one Hispanic and is a professor of Spanish.

And, when you defend yourself of the charge of racism who is supporting a panel to assure that whites are not buying their higher degrees through term papers and exams taken by others. And because minorities cannot pay for private teaching,Why the the emphasis on athletes at Universities?

Rene, Director of Resident Initiatives, at 9:29 pm EST on December 28, 2005

Everyone is gifted

African American student-athlete is ‘gifted’ he has magnificent physical, technical, tactical and psychological sports ability.

It is absurd to say that 10 year old is ‘gifted’ and implying that it reserved exclusively to Caucasians. Who is the authority to claim this 10 year old is ‘gifted’? His parents? Paying off admission officers and influential people in the institute.

The certain minimum criteria are there for all; a 10 year old will not be accepted to join the armed forces; regardless how gifted he is and no matter what his parents claims.

David Robertson, Professor at SUNY, at 2:15 pm EST on December 29, 2005

Racism? Not in the classical sense.

Race may not have much to do with intelligence, but it is a major factor in socio-economic status, especially in a society with less than fifty years of fully racially integrated education. There is a strong correlation between socio-economic status and academic performance. There is no such correlation between academic performance and innate potential and aptitude.

The President of the United States, who can barely speak in complete sentences (like him or not, everybody knows this is true), might not have had much difficulty coasting through Yale and the Texas Air National Guard (correspondence style), straight into the Oval Office. Not nearly as much difficulty as a black state championship-winning teenage high school student living in an income sensitive housing project with his single mother, who’s working two jobs herself without the benefit of a college education, might have navigating the Miami-Dade public school system and the NCAA Eligibility Clearinghouse. Myles Brand, president of the NCAA, can sit in his ivory tower and wring his hands and conceive new and innovative ways to keep gifted athletes from pursing their talents at the college level all he wants. That is after all what the National Collegiate Athletic Association pays him $738,000 a year to do. Perhaps one day the NCAA will achieve its mission of preventing the most talented of athletes from pursing their extra-ordinary gifts at the college level. It will be interesting to see the revenue generated by a bunch of Molecular Biology and 18th Century French Poetry majors on a football field or basketball court trying to play ball.

Do sports fans really insist their favorite athletes be academic geniuses? There’s no such insistence that geniuses be athletically gifted. There is also no evidence that the student-athletes fingered by the NYT are less intelligent than the rest of the college-attending student body. No matter. The NCAA is presently raising the minimum standards for participation in college athletics to a level higher than the minimum standards for admission to most four year universities. Shouldn’t universities have the freedom to set their own admission standards? Or should a nonprofit corporation, whose chief executives earn more than most for-profit corporations’ executives, decide which students will best contribute to their respective academic communities? Aren’t universities supposed to be places where individuals can refine and perfect their natural potential and pursue their God given talents? Or are universities simply places where people pursue credentials to qualify for jobs?

The NCAA could have been painted by Monet, (and was probably named by George Orwell.) Up close all you can see are intricate brush strokes. You really need to step back quite a distance to really grasp what you are looking at.

All 14 individuals identified by the New York Times were talented black student-athletes. Or are they really just “dumb jocks?” Racism? Of course not. That is no longer politically correct. A far more complicated and convoluted apparatus has been concocted.

Perhaps instead of the NCAA studying high school policies, member universities should study NCAA policies. And maybe, just perhaps, reconsider their membership. But we all know, considering the power of that cartel, that is not going to happen anytime soon.

Michael R., at 5:06 am EST on January 2, 2006