Opinion: For Black college athletes, this is the bus boycott of our era

Opinion by Derrick Johnson

(CNN) — College sports fans across America are gathering in arenas and around television sets this week for the start of March Madness, the highpoint of the NCAA basketball season and a national sports obsession.

Making it to the tournament is the culmination of years of practice, sometimes for hours a day beginning in grade school. It may demand years of participation on travel teams, summer sports camps and youth recreation leagues. Just getting to play at the college level is a huge personal achievement, but punching a ticket to the “The Big Dance” is more than that— it’s a matter of school bragging rights and community pride.

At this moment in our history, for Black college players on these teams — and in college sports more broadly — this championship season also affords a moment to pause and reflect. There’s another measure of success that these student athletes should weigh, and it has to do with how they leverage their influence as valued members of their campus communities for a much bigger cause.

It’s hard to overlook the fact that some colleges and universities that boast some of the most impressive records in sports — including in the marquee sports basketball and football, along with athletics — are located in some states that have been most aggressive in dismantling initiatives intended to reverse decades of racial bias and discrimination. Some of these programs were put into place within just the past few years, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.

A good number of the schools that have been unraveling programs meant to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are located in the southern United States. That may not be surprising, given the region’s history of slavery, Jim Crow oppression and its sometimes dogged resistance to the advancement of the Civil Rights era for Black Americans.

Many of the players on their storied sports teams, meanwhile, are Black. At some schools, the student player population is overwhelmingly Black. Without the contributions of these gifted athletes to their sports fields and basketball courts, many of these schools would not see a marked drop in the quality of their teams. Some might not even be able to field a team. And that could have a devastating impact on their bottom line, since as most people know, the academy is an industry and college sports is a big moneymaker, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in television contracts, alumni donations and ticket sales.

Black student athletes may not be aware of the potentially outsize influence they possess in shaping academic policies that work to their detriment — if they decide to leverage it.

I fervently hope that high school student athletes looking to apply to colleges and universities not consider schools that are reversing DEI programs — and they should let the recruiters, coaches and admissions officers know why they’ve opted not to join their programs. I would hope that students currently enrolled at schools that have dismantled DEI consider, in consultation with their parents and guardians, whether their academic needs might not be better served elsewhere.

The stakes for Black student athletes in protecting DEI is the same as it is for the Black community as a whole. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, since 2023, state legislators have introduced at least 65 anti-DEI bills aimed at prohibiting colleges from hiring a more diverse faculty, removing cultural competency training and undermining comprehensive curriculum. These trends, coupled with the banning of books, and attempts to rewrite US history, are a coordinated attack on Black America, the progress we have fought so hard to achieve and the future we are working to secure.

The same states that seek to undermine educational opportunity and holistic learning environments are profiting to the tune of millions of dollars a year off the backs of Black talent, their families and fans. While these leaders may not listen to our rallying cries, they most definitely stand to feel the impact of our absence.

To Black America and our allies, I urge you to understand that the privilege of choice was not given to Black America, we fought for it. Although many of the battles we are facing today look similar to those we faced nearly a century ago, one thing has changed — today, we have choices.

We have the choice to decide where to take our talent and when to take a stand. We have a choice to take that stand, or to remain silent. And although protest may come at a price, the cost of losing that choice and our collective progress is much greater.

Some of the most influential decisions we make as Black Americans are where we choose to take our talents, spend our money and dedicate our time. I implore student athletes to choose wisely. For yourself, for your culture and for your community.

This year, we are celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark decision that forced our country to take the first step towards educational equity by desegregating our nation’s schools. Less than a century ago, Black students were deprived of the same opportunities that their white peers were afforded in an attempt to strengthen the forces of oppression that gripped the soul of our nation. The sad reality is, despite desegregation, many Black students continue to face often insurmountable barriers to receiving an equitable education and the opportunities it brings.

In order to prevent our nation from the negative, long-term consequences of dismantling DEI, we must use every tool at our disposal to fight back against these coordinated attacks. And while the politicians spearheading this anti-Black campaign may not respect our community, or our nation’s history, the profits that their respective states reap from Black talent is undeniable.

To the legislators and elected officials — and yes, college and university presidents and boards — who have made it their mission to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion, your choices will have consequences. And those consequences will be felt in terms of economic consequences in the short-term and the collective, long-term consequences our nation is forced to endure as a result of your self-interested actions.

DEI is the future. It has the power to carry us forward, propelling our nation toward continued prosperity and progress. We must reject the attempts to take us back, so that we can all move forward, together. There is no other option. Embracing the ideals of diversity, equity and inclusion is the best way to combat systemic racism and ensure that America is a country of opportunity for all of us. We must not allow dark forces to revert our progress on embracing diversity, equity and inclusion.

For Black Americans, our culture has allowed us to move forward, but our community is what will continue carrying us through. And in the face of the current manufactured culture war, the power of community is the weapon we must not shy away from using.

The strength of sports lies in its ability to build community, but this sense of community should empower progress, not hinder it. Black student athletes, I believe, will take those values onboard as they make the decisions that affect not just their own careers, but that can impact the progress experienced by Black Americans everywhere.

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