Sports and Inequality

Sports and Discrimination is a comprehensive collection of annotated writings examining the legal and social implications of discrimination in both the professional and amateur sports contexts. The text examines the full scope of sports discrimination issues, specifically, the history of and contemporary experience with discrimination based on race, gender, disability, ethnic background, age, religion, and sexual orientation.

Topics embrace the paradigmatic discrimination issues, including disparities in employment and educational contexts and the exclusion of persons from public facilities or services based on race, gender, or disability. A considerable portion of the book is devoted to the absence of racial and gender diversity both on the playing fields and in the front office, with particular emphasis on hiring, advancement, and compensation. The book also addresses less obvious examples of inequality, such as the effect of offensive logos on trademark certification; private clubs and the extent to which their systematic exclusion of minorities and women can and should be combated; NCAA eligibility criteria; abuse of spouses or partners by athletes and mistreatment of athletes, particularly young women, by coaches and other authority figures; and a score of related subjects.

The text considers its topics from a broad spectrum of perspectives, utilizing both legal and non-legal resources — judicial opinions, statutory provisions, and articles and book excerpts from a variety of disciplines — to offer a wide-ranging survey of views on sports and inequality. The writings are supplemented with extensive notes, questions, references, and in-class exercises.