University presidents, conference commissioners and athletics and campus leaders at 130 Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institutions are still mainly comprised by White men, according to a new report by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida (UCF).
Titled “The 2018 DI FBS Leadership College Racial and Gender Report Card: Collegiate Athletic Leadership Gets a D as it is Still Dominated by White Men” the report, published Wednesday, found that both White men and women, held 85.4 percent of the total FBS presidents, athletics directors and faculty athletics representatives. The percentage of women in these positions increased by 2 percent from last year’s study to 19.5 percent, while 7.3 percent were filled by African-Americans, 4.8 percent were filled by Latinos and 2.3 percent were filled by Asians, according to the report findings.
The report card assigned the following grades for racial and gender diversity within FBS conferences and schools: gender hiring received an “F”while racial hiring received a “C” for an overall grade of a “D.”
Though the overall results were hardly impressive, racial and gender hiring did improve in several areas over the past year, including the increase in the number of women presidents and presidents of color.
The report also found that though some campus and athletic leadership positions achieved small increases in diverse hiring compared to last year’s data, only 14.6 percent of athletic leaders were held by people of color and 19.5 percent by women. There were no female Asian or Native America athletics directors at FBS colleges and universities.
In terms of student-athlete data, the percentage of football players of color for the 2018 season was 60.2 percent, a 0.8 percent decrease from 2017. White football student-athletes for the 2018 season reached 39.9 percent, a 0.87 percent increase from 2017, according to the report.
Out of 136 FBS faculty athletic representative positions, 14.7 percent were people of color, 31.6 percent were women and 85.3 percent were White. In regards to conference commissioners, 90 percent of the FBS conference commissioners were White men.
