Regardless if paying college athletes is actually a hot issue, the Washington Post is determined to make it one. And it's all about race. Kevin Wallsten, Tatishe M. Nteta, and Lauren A. McCarthy -- all professors -- banded together to come up with "Racial prejudice is driving opposition to paying college athletes. Here's the evidence."



The piece presents the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) as "a tremendously lucrative business for everyone but the athletes." It then refers to criticism from Jay Bilas, ESPN college basketball analyst who played for Duke, Taylor Branch of the Atlantic, and HBO late-night host John Oliver to say "many pundits argue that it’s exploitation to have players work for such paltry compensation..."

That "paltry compensation" is referenced, but in a flippant manner and with a scoff. It's not enough and barely worth a mention to WaPo that, with added emphasis but original quotation marks, "most college athletes are “paid” with scholarships that cover only tuition, room, board, books and fees...

Besides referring to their opponents as racist, another argument for not paying college athletes is mentioned. Included is a quote from NCAA President Mark Emmert who said that "one of the biggest reasons fans like college sports is that they believe the athletes are really students who play for a love of the sport."

Other than that, there is no mention that these college athletes, while athletes, are students who are there first and foremost (or at least ought to be) to get an education. They're not there for a job, but rather to obtain an education, experience, and connections which will make it possible to get a job in the future.

College athletes may benefit in other ways, from simply enjoying the game to having the chance to play professional sports after college. Thus, playing in college may have been "lucrative" for them, too, even if not immediately or monetarily.

At least the writers have evidence for calling out the racists, right? That's not really the point though. There's an issue when a title screams in a reader's face if you don't think student athletes should get paid, you're a racist! And, to make matters worse, there's not much room for the reader to argue when there is a promise of evidence.

Most overall don't think that athletes should be paid, but when broken down by race, more blacks do. The piece also mentions that most college athletes in football and basketball are black.

WaPo then connects the dots further to apply that to attitudes on paying student athletes. And they conducted their own survey and experiment to do so. They claim that "negative racial views about blacks were the single most important predictor of white opposition to paying college athletes."

To check our findings’ validity, we also conducted an experiment. Before we asked white respondents whether college athletes should be paid, we showed one group pictures of young black men with stereotypical African American first and last names. We showed another group no pictures at all. As you can see in the figure below, whites who were primed by seeing pictures of young black men were significantly more likely to say they opposed paying college athletes. Support dropped most dramatically among whites who expressed the most resent towards blacks as a group.

As they explained about their survey, referring to a bar graph from the article:The piece closes by hammering home the point that, with original emphasis,Its authors assert that "the discussion about paying college athletes is implicitly a discussion about race." And, not to outdo themselves, the final sentence is a stab at the NCAA. "As the representative of nearly 1,200 schools, conferences and affiliate organizations, the NCAA should consider how much it wants to base its policies on public opinion that may be tainted by racial prejudice."

Why does everything have to be about race? And why do those who disagree, whatever their their reasons, have to be racist. The piece mentioned that "racial divisions on controversial issues, of course, are not new." Also not new? Race baiters, just like the authors of this piece. They can either continue to scream racism, or they can seek to have a less divisive dialogue with their critics. When they call out such critics as racists, they can't realistically have both.