Proposition 48/16 Could Be Dead
Last night, we spoke with Jamual Warren, a 6-2, 190 combo/point guard from Springfield, MA and Notre Dame Academy, who stated that he has been taking classes to help him with the SAT examination process and would take the exam until he got a qualifying score. Well, he may be following different standards than those that have been in place since Proposition 48 was enacted in 1983.
Proposition 48 (now 16) may be overhauled by the NCAA during today's Board of Directors meeting. Unlike previous modifications over the last 20 years, the rules will be liberalized if the Academic Consultants' proposal is approved. And, the change could be effective as early as August 2003. So rising seniors may need to meet different standards than what the class of 2002 (and earlier years) needed to satisfy.
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Players with a 2.5 GPA would still need an 820 SAT score. But those with higher GPAs would need a lower score. For instance, a 3.00 GPA would require 620 on the SAT or a sum of 52 on the ACT (see chart below). The other change would raise the core course requirement from 13 to 14 courses.
All this comes after litigation (Cureton vs. NCAA) that challenged the NCAA rules was unsuccessful, not because of the merits of the argument, but because the NCAA successfully argued that the organization is not subject to U.S. law because it does not directly receive federal funds. These decisions reversed a district court ruling that found "... Proposition 16 violated Title VI regulations because it had an unjustified disparate impact on African-American student-athletes."
That wasn't the only argument. As Mark Asher reports in today's Washington Post, "The Education Testing Service (which administers the SAT) has long said the test (was) misapplied, and critics have said it discriminates against athletes from lower socioeconomic levels, especially African Americans, in the highly commercialized sports of football and men's basketball." The reason it was misapplied: it is an inaccurate indicator of academic potential.
So why the change now? NCAA outgoing President Cedric Dempsey supports the move because, "... academic consultants and NCAA researchers collected data that showed the removal of an arbitrary cutoff score on a test did not reduce admission standards as proponents feared."
Asher quotes Delaware State President William B. DeLauder who said, "There could not be a rational discussion because people weren't listening -- like you were opposed to quality when you argued against the SAT score."
If the Board of Directors approves these proposals today and the vote at an October 31st meeting is also favorable, the new numbers would be implemented with the 2003-04 school year, i.e., for players who start full time college August 1, 2003 or later.
PROPOSAL
(new provisions in bold)
