For many of you, the term USUDC will mean nothing. However, it is just the latest example of racism and demagoguery undermining collegiate activities. A long list that needs to be addressed by college administrations across the U.S.
The United States Universities Debating Championship (USUDC) is the national level tournament to cap the collegiate debate season for those who participate in the British Parliamentary style of debate.
During the USUDC 2021 event at Penn State this last weekend, one debate team from Morehouse College out of Atlanta, GA was subjected to racist remarks and mocking during their rounds. Instead of acting in an appropriate manner, the administration running the tournament completely let the event slide.
This in turn led Morehouse to lead a boycott that would see the tournament canceled early.
This is simply disgusting for lack of a better term.
The administration of a college activity failed to respond to racism and hatred. Even in an activity like debate which often considers itself more intellectually inspired than others, racism is still an inescapable truth.
This is nowhere near something unique or a once-in-a-lifetime incident.
The failure of the USUDC 2021 admin is another example of collegiate administrations failing to actively address these issues when they arise in their given sports or activities.
Recall in 2015 when the University of Oklahoma fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, was recorded signing racist chants on a bus.
Or recall in 2018 when the University of Iowa ejected their strength and conditioning football coach, Chris Doyle, for racist remarks towards athletes.
Or even just this year when Creighton University was pressured to let go of their basketball coach after making racist remarks in response to a lost game.
The point of that list is to show these are not isolated events. These examples do look cherry picked; however, a quick Google search will bring endless examples of college sports and activities being flooded with racist example after racist example.
Firing a coach or expelling a student after the fact is all well and good, but it is nowhere enough to solve the issue that creates these incidents in the first place.
College administrations and the organizations that direct collegiate sports or activities need to be more proactive in their handling of these issues.
There needs to be a more stringent policy to force change in the environment. Whether it be harsher punishments for people who act in this way or specific groups designed to oversee and audit these activities, the overhead control needs to be more active in what they do.
I understand the hesitance to have more control by actors like the NCAA or NSDA. However, when a problem is this widespread, there needs to be someone or something that actually pursues a solvency to the issue.
Every time an example like USUDC comes up, status quo defenders want to brush racist incidents as stand-alone isolated events. They say that racism is on its last leg and this is not the norm.
Apparently that last leg is pretty strong.
College administrations need to be much more active in their stances against racism. They need to pursue real answers instead of performing lip service or acting after the fact. It will take a group of people much smarter than I to solve for the roots of racism that still haunt collegiate sports or activities.
Though maybe it is time for collegiate administrations to be more proactive in their work. That way there can actually be a pushback against racism here.
