When Black students mean less than Black student-athletes...

Get the Point!

Since the State of Florida eliminated affirmative action by enacting the "One Florida" program around the turn of the century, the number of Black high school students entering the University of Florida (UF) and the University of South Florida (USF), the state's sole public predominantly white institutions (PWI) in the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU), declined.

Back in 2000, I was among the thousands of protesters who marched on Florida's Capitol Complex to protest the elimination of affirmative action that was signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush (R)

Black enrollment at Florida State University (FSU), the state's second highest ranked school according to US News & World Report, has been on a roller coaster ever since affirmative action was ended. In fact, a 2015 Washington Post article lamented the 15 percent drop in the number of Black freshmen at FSU between 2000 and 2009 and quoted Brandon Bowden, then assistant vice president for student affairs at FSU, as follows:

“There will be so few black students on our campus that prospective students [who are black] will choose not to come here because they see no one who looks like them.” FSU VP Brandon Bowden circa 2015

Even worse, from 2010 to 2021, the share of Black freshmen admitted to UF dropped by half, from 9% to under 5%, while at USF, Black freshmen enrollment dropped from 11.5% to 7.2% over the same time period.

But what has stayed consistent since One Florida went into effect is that Black student- athletes have continued to comprise the bulk of the football and basketball teams at UF, FSU, USF, and the University of Central Florida (UCF).

Four of the five starters on UF's back-to-back men's national championship basketball team in the mid 2000’s were Black, as were seven of the top eight in Coach Billy Donovan's rotation…

During this same time, UF won two national championships in football—both by predominantly Black teams! FSU has won one football championship during this same period, in 2013, with 21 of 22 players in a starting lineup led by Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston that year being Black!

Neither Miami, FSU, nor UF won a football national championship until top Black student athletes who attended schools like Florida A&M during the Jim Crow era started enrolling and dominating at these formerly segregated PWI's in the 1980’s and 90’s…

Such is why I strongly contend that the main issue in light of last week's Supreme Court ruling is not the never ending debate about whether Black high school seniors should attend a PWI or an HBCU, but why conservatives across the country have charted a course that will deny access to PWI's for qualified Black students who don't block, tackle, catch, or dribble! Qualified Black students, I remind, whose families pay their fair share of taxes to fund public PWI's, but receive no direct benefit from their forced investments in the same.

Last, I think that the most sickening aspect of the affirmative action debate is that those whites and other races who believe that Black applicants have received unfair advantages don't like to discuss how “legacy admits” at the nation's most academically rigorous PWI's have allowed more than their share of white “Average Amys,” “Dumb Donalds,” “Mediocre Marks,” and “Remedial Ronalds” to attend such schools all because their ancestors attended or donated significant funds to the same. That's why I will continue to blast the hypocrisy of last week's Supreme Court ruling—one that will surely violate equal protection laws once those minority numbers continue to decrease—while I continue to remind parents that if Harvard or North Carolina Chapel Hill refuse to admit your brilliant Black child in the days ahead, be sure to remind your kid all about Howard or North Carolina Central and how America's HBCU's have educated the overwhelming majority of Black professionals since their inception, anyway!