When the Campus Is the Locker Room: A Queer Analysis of Student Athletics Bias Incidents

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: LGBTQ Students and Higher Education Politics and Policy

Abstract

This study analyzes institutional responses to sex and gender bias incidents in student athletics programs and messaging around inclusion and antidiscrimination between 2015 and 2019 to uncover, understand, and transform the embedded institutional values that harm sex and gender minority (SGM) students on college campuses and in student athletics. Analysis indicates that institutions are likely to 1) limit their responsibility for bias incidents, 2) individualize discriminatory behavior to the perpetrators, ignoring embedded institutional cultures, and 3) reiterate “zero tolerance” while failing to enact any material change for the SGM students harmed by both the incidents in question and the institutions’ vague and toothless policies.

Author

• Nicholas Francis Havey, University of California - Los Angeles