By Duncan Emmons
The newspaper article covering the Black 14 event in Wyoming, claiming that the event had nothing to do with race, in relation to the 14 players being dismissed because of protests against the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and the school which supports their racially charged policies and exclusion of colored students from Brigham Young University.
-Black 14 Collection, Box 2, Folder 5, Collection 10405
This newspaper article artifact, which covers the Black 14 event specifically the Governor of the time, Stan Hathaway, demonstrates the discrimination against African American’s in Wyoming, and in the United States. The article and event brought to light two more discussions regarding discrimination and oppression of African American minorities within higher education, with a focus on colleges and universities, as well as the discrimination against African American’s within athletic and sport careers.
Looking at the 1969 Northern Wyoming Daily News, newspaper article on Governor Stan Hathaway, which claims “Race is not an issue for the dismissal of 14 players”. This event in question, being referred to as the Black 14, points out the blatant racism and discrimination present within the University of Wyoming during this time. The event in question involved 14 African American football player of the University of Wyoming, who all wished to wear black armbands to an upcoming football game, to oppose the discriminatory practices and racist polices of Brigham Young University, the students and players, which were dismissed for wearing the black armbands outside of team practices, while in street wear, when they went to the head coach of the time, Coach Eaton. The Black 14 event followed the court's decision of the Tinker V. Des Moine court case, which allowed free use of the first amendment on school grounds, and at school events. This clearly outlines the unconstitutional implications of the Black 14 event, as the athletes are students, and thus are allowed by law to wear whatever, non-offensive, messages they wish while at school and school focused events, which includes school football practices and games. An important follow up of this, is that the students would have won a court case against the University of Wyoming, if it had made it that far. This event as a whole shows the racially charged system which maintains and justified actions like this at the time, which stems from the European social systems, which American adopted since its colonization, and since has shifted from, but many layers of cultural intolerance and discrimination remain present within our society, “Today, though, it is an arbitrary hierarchical categorization of humans based on skin tone, even though that physical feature is as inherently meaningless as the color of the eyes (Allen, 2012b; Lang, 2000). While this idea of race is a complete social construction, its application and use in society has had real impacts.” (Lavalley; Paragraph 9). As we know, there is no real difference between and African American and a Caucasian, but this system which our foundations as a nation have been built on, allow for the discriminatory practices of oppressing colored minorities to exist, and perpetuate the injustices we still see today.
This event, while already proven unconstitutional, opened the door for a closer look at the discriminatory practices of many higher education schools and universities, as well as the discrimination of African American minorities within sports and athletic careers. Focusing on the discriminatory practices of universities, colleges and other places of higher education, there are already blaring problems within high school educations to college educations. African Americans already attend college 60% less, per population, compared to white Americans, and for those who do make it into college they are found to graduate with significantly more student debt than white college students. This is found because there is still a prevalent wage gap between African American communities and White communities as large as it was in 1968 (very close to the time of the Black 14 event) (Redden 1). Following this, colleges only enroll up to 9% of African American students per rate proportional to population of their states, this percentage has actually dropped since 2000, as economic gaps have grown even larger. Demonstrating how difficult it is for African American students just to get into universities and colleges, from an already economic disadvantage and racial discrimination, this intersects further with difficulties within colleges as African Americans often have and had problems with white students, “African American college students report more problems than White college students in the areas of ethnic unity, ethnic trust, interracial and intra-racial conflicts” (e.g. Westbrooke, Miyares, and Roberts, 1978). As the economic system is already built against African Americans, this follows them into universities and colleges, which continue to stack odds against them in terms of student debt, low acceptance rates, and culture which continues to harm their path to education and future careers.
This problem begins to intersect with discrimination against African Americans in athletic careers and sports, as we can see within the Black 14 event. While looking at an all-star voting system within sports, to see the estimated player, and population, vote for which players would start on all-star teams, ranging from 1970 to present, this discrimination was found heavily present within sports, “The implied marginal effects of the control variables are similar to those of the previous estimations. Of greatest interest, the pattern of "discrimination" against African Americans is the same. The 1970 coefficient on the African American dummy is negative, statistically significant at less than 1%, with a marginal effect implying that African Americans received 20% fewer votes than their white and Latin counterparts” (Hanssen, F Andrew; Andersen, Torben.). In 1970, when this statistic was found, there was a startling discriminatory perspective in place against African American’s in sports and athletic careers, leading forward to present day this has lessened, but is still prevalent. As a whole, this shows us the intersection of discrimination against African American in higher education and in sports, but when this is combined the oppression of these people stacks up to bewildering amounts, especially when considering all of the disadvantages which can contribute to these circumstance, as well as all of the cultural struggles as part of this. There is a true intersection of discrimination when sports, race, and higher education are all taken into account, a problem which can be seen in the Black 14 event, which doesn’t immediately bring these problems to light.
Sources-
Occupation, injustice, and anti-Black racism in the United States of America
The Black Press Centering on Injustice (1938): An Afrocentric Analysis of Black Newspaper Coverage.
Racial prejudice, perceived injustice, and the Black-White gap in punitive attitudes-
Evans, Kathy M., and Edwin L. Herr. “The Influence of Racial Identity and the Perception of Discrimination on the Career Aspirations of African American Men and Women.” Journal of Vocational Behavior, Academic Press, 25 May 2002, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001879184710128.
Hanssen, F. Andrew, and Torben Andersen. “Has Discrimination Lessened over Time? A Test Using Baseball's All-Star Vote.” Economic Inquiry, vol. 37, no. 2, 1999, pp. 326–352., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1999.tb01433.x.
The Way We Were?: Discrimination ... - Journals.sagepub.com. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/048661349602800201.
“Tinker v. Des Moines.” United States Courts, https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/tinker-v-des-moines.
“Inside Higher Ed.” Will Conversation Turn to Action When It Comes to Issues of Racial Equity in College Admission?, https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2020/10/26/will-conversation-turn-action-when-it-comes-issues-racial-equity.