NCAA Votes Modified Standards for Athletes : Temporarily Eases New Academic Rules; Foes Assert Many Black Students Will Be Excluded

The National Collegiate Athletic Assn. gave final approval Monday to its most sweeping set of academic rules for new college athletes, but only after temporarily lowering the standards slightly in hopes that more than half of all black athletes will not be excluded from playing.

The college presidents who sponsored the new rules say they will prevent colleges from recruiting athletes who have almost no chance of earning a degree. But the opponents, led by the heads of the predominantly black colleges, say the standards will create “apartheid” in American higher education by barring many black students who go to college on sports scholarships.

The standard that was modified Monday was first approved by the NCAA in 1983. As originally conceived, the rules would have required that students entering school next fall achieve a score of 700 out of 1,600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test or a 15 out of 36 on the American College Test to be eligible for intercollegiate athletics. In addition, a student would need a 2.0 grade average in 11 academic courses. Previously, a student needed only a 2.0 high school grade average, in any set of courses, to be eligible for an athletic scholarship.

Although the new requirement is viewed as a minimal standard, NCAA studies showed that it would eliminate more than half of black athletes and about one-fourth of whites. Under the changes approved Monday, a student entering this fall could have a score as low as 660 on the SAT and have a grade average as low as 1.8 on a four-point scale. Next year, the minimums would rise to 680 and 1.9, before returning to the original rule in 1988.

“This will provide us with a little time for the core curriculum to be effective,” said NCAA President John Davis of Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore., after the compromise was approved by a 2-1 margin. “But the test score is still there as a bottom line.”

Earlier, by a 4-1 margin, the NCAA delegates voted down a proposal to scrap the test score standard, despite an argument by President Joseph Johnson of Grambling State University, Grambling, La., that requiring a minimum score on standardized tests “clearly discriminates against black people.”

“All the evidence shows a great travesty of justice will be perpetrated on thousands of young people,” he said. Johnson also charged that rules were drawn up by “a small group of misguided, misinformed elitist members of this organization.”

But requiring a certain test score gives colleges “some objective, outside measure” of the student’s ability, said University of California Berkeley Chancellor Ira Heyman.

Could Revise It Again

Heyman, who sponsored the modified rule, said the two-year phase-in period “will permit us to gather further data on its impact.” If a large percentage of athletes is still being eliminated, he said, the NCAA could revise the rule again in 1987.

College board scores, especially for black students, have been inching upward, Heyman said, so more students will likely meet the standard than is now believed.

Nevertheless, based on transcripts of college athletes who entered school in 1982, the NCAA says that only 59% of black male athletes and 93% of white males would have qualified with SAT scores above 660. Meanwhile, among schools using the ACT, only 38% of black male athletes and 81% of white males would have been permitted to play as freshmen.

See Similar Effect

Both figures are between 8% and 10% higher than they would have been had the rule not been modified on Monday. NCAA officials say they have less data on female athletes, but they believe the effect will be similar.

The discrepancy between results using the SAT and ACT probably stems from where the tests are used, said NCAA Treasurer Wilford Bailey of Auburn University, Auburn, Ala. The ACT is used primarily in the South and Midwest, where students tend to score lower than those in the East and Far West. As a result, the ACT may look like it is a more rigid standard, but the two basic scores--700 on the SAT and 15 on the ACT--are judged to be nearly identical in difficulty.

Leaders of the black colleges, who have fought the test score requirement for three years, were not satisfied by the modified rule. They described the changes as “window dressing” and said many gifted black athletes who could earn degrees will be screened out of college.