Is Racism the Main Factor in Opposition to Paying College Athletes?

footballA new study by research at the University of Massachusetts and California State University, Long Beach finds that racism is a factor in opposition to paying college athletes for their services.

First, researchers found that most African Americans favor paying college athletes while most White Americans oppose it. They also measured respondents’ racial views and found that Whites with more negative opinions of Blacks were less likely to approve of paying college athletes.

In another experiment, researchers showed one group of White survey participants pictures of African American college athletes that include captions with stereotypical Black names before asking their opinion on paying college athletes. A control group was not shown any photographs. The results showed that the group that was shown the photographs were significantly less likely to approve of paying college athletes.

The authors conclude, “the discussion about paying college athletes is implicitly a discussion about race.”

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2 COMMENTS

    • There’s a link in the post to a newspaper article. I would contact the authors of the study listed at the end of that article.

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