Sports

I've said this for years:  if "equity" is so important, especially in schools, then we should apply it to athletics and not just to academics:

Equity is all the rage in public schools. Academic excellence is a sin if it does not occur in proportion to whatever racial categories administrators embrace. Across the country, magnet schools eliminate colorblind entrance exams or Advanced Placement courses if too many Asians or too few African Americans pass...

If schools are to prioritize equity over equality, result over opportunity, and use skin color and sexual orientation as their primary metric of diversity, why not take their crusade further? Why should varsity sports become the sole survivor of their war on merit? If diversity is the prize, shouldn’t football teams prioritize playing Asians and Jews, both underrepresented, in order to achieve athletic equity? Likewise, if one varsity baseball player has a batting average of .300 and another just .100, wouldn’t equity demand that the second player have three times as many at-bats to achieve an equal number of hits?

And if Title IX, despite its original intent, can mandate cuts to some sports teams to ensure the proper proportion of male and female opportunities regardless of individual interest, shouldn’t the Americans with Disability Act be enough reason to cut others? After all, ice hockey inherently discriminates against paraplegics.

It is of course possible to go down a racial and religious rabbit hole. African Americans dominate the NBA today, but just a century ago, Jews dominated professional basketball. Is it antisemitic that the NBA today boasts only one Jewish player ? Or is it possible that for reasons of culture or individual choice, members of other groups simply tried harder and outperformed Jewish players?

We don't apply "equity" to sports because sports is important.