Data Group’s Links Concern BCA Leaders : Issues: Coaches claim NCAA-funded analysts are connected to founder of movement that favors genetic superiority. Panel member denies charges.

With the exception of a threatened boycott, no Black Coaches Assn. announcement attracted more attention than a charge on Dec. 14, 1993, that at least three members of an NCAA-sponsored research panel were linked to the founder of a movement known as Beyondism, which in some cases advocates polices of genetic superiority.

Three months later, the panel’s principal consultant, Jack McArdle, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, continues to dispute the allegations and defend the research.

McArdle’s Data Analysis Working Group, whose findings are crucial to NCAA policy concerning academic entrance and eligibility standards for student-athletes, particularly minorities, was labeled “the hidden enemy” in a statement by Rudy Washington, executive director of the BCA.

“Fifty years ago, millions of Jews were herded onto railroad cars and sent to their deaths,” Washington said in a statement. “Letting this group continue to advise the NCAA can only propagate the same basic ideas of a superior race.”

At the heart of the issue are the beliefs of Raymond Cattell, a noted psychology professor who first published his views on the subject in 1936. McArdle said Cattell believes there is a disproportionately large number of children born to those with less intellect. A possible solution, according to Cattell’s writings, is that some people would be encouraged more than others to reproduce.

In its most basic form, the beginnings of genetic breeding, otherwise known as eugenics.

The connection between Cattell and some members of the data analysis group became the focal point of concern for the BCA and others.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Congresswoman Cardiss Collins (D-Ill.) wrote to NCAA President Joseph Crowley raising the issue. In the letter, Collins said McArdle, John Horn, a USC psychology professor, and John Nesselroade, a Virginia psychology professor, “appear to be on the ‘self-appointed executive group’ ” to Cattell’s Beyondism Foundation.

Defenders of the panel said it is unfair to assume guilt by association. They say many psychologists who did graduate work under Cattell, as Horn and Nesselroade did at the University of Illinois during the 1960s, do not endorse Cattell’s beliefs of eugenics.

“It is not part of my personal belief system and I’ve told (Cattell) so on numerous occasions,” said McArdle, who was appointed director of Cattell Research Institute in Charlottesville, Va., last year. “But eugenics is a complex topic and it’s one that is easily confused with racism, so I understand the concerns of the people (in the BCA) from the eugenics aspect.”

According to McArdle, who was hired as the principal researcher for the NCAA project in 1989, no member of the Data Analysis Working Group adhered to the belief of eugenics as proposed by Cattell.

“There’s no genetics in here at all,” he said of the research. “This is not genetics study.”

This has not mollified Collins, who chairs the Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Competitiveness. Collins is also vice chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus’ Task Force on Intercollegiate Athletics.

Collins’ subcommittee, which reports to the powerful Committee on Energy and Commerce, has launched an investigation into the inner workings of the Data Analysis Working Group. If the investigation continues at its present pace, the first hearing could take place by the end of the month, just in time for the NCAA’s crown jewel, the Final Four.

McArdle, who said he admires some of Cattell’s work, said it was because of Cattell’s pro-eugenic policy that he chose to not join the psychologist’s Beyondism group.

As for the BCA’s charges, McArdle said he can understand why the coaches and Collins are concerned by appearances of a link between Cattell and the research group. For instance, Nesselroade, McArdle’s colleague at Virginia, published a book with Cattell in 1988.

“I’m not denying that their question is good,” he said. “They should ask such a question and they should ask us where we stand on these issues. The best evidence we have is the research we’ve done for the NCAA.”

In that research, the group’s data support the BCA’s contention that higher entrance standards are possibly racially biased. Additional research, which should be completed within two months, McArdle said, also seems to support the initial findings.

“They were viewing us as adversarial when, in fact, we were not at all in the position to advocate one or the other sides,” McArdle said.

USC’s Horn said he talked to Trojan Coach George Raveling, a BCA leader, about his links to Cattell, explaining his association did not cause him to do “anything dishonest or improper with data or to advise anyone to do that.”

Added Horn: “Rudy Washington has made some accusations that are absolutely scandalous. He’s accused people on the basis of no evidence.”

McArdle said he has written Collins and offered to make himself available for any questions concerning the research. He said he has not been contacted by the BCA, but that he would be willing to speak with the organization.

Armed with information they believe suggests that the NCAA research findings were tainted, the BCA and Collins recommended, among other things, that all eligibility standards be repealed immediately. The NCAA didn’t go along with that, but it did call for an immediate review of all available research on Proposal 16, legislation that would impose new academic standards for incoming Division I freshman athletes beginning in August, 1995.

The resolution was adopted in January at the NCAA Convention.

Collins’ subcommittee not only wants McArdle’s findings examined by an independent third party, but it wants access to the raw data used in the research. It contends that there is no system of checks and balances within the Data Analysis Working Group, that data this important require independent confirmation.

Collins also plans to challenge the scientific integrity of the process, as well as the NCAA’s choice of consultants and the research panel’s alleged lack of diversity.

According to a source familiar with the subcommittee, the NCAA has yet to respond “adequately” to Collins’ written request for access to the raw data. Nor has it agreed to allow an independent research group to study the data.