8C — Fall 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Female athletics in 
sports media 

Just as ticket prices appear 
to impact the public’s opinion 
of women’s sports, so does the 
sports media. There is little to no 
coverage of women’s athletics and 
that leads to a lack of investment, 
interest and education on the 
part of the public. It becomes 
extremely difficult to generate 
support when the big influencers 
in sports media disregard any 
important events that happen 
in the female athletics world. In 
fact, the only time there is any 
significant coverage of women’s 
sporting events is during the 
Olympics and the World Cup.
This becomes more obvious 
during March Madness. The 
men’s and women’s tournaments 
run side by side, yet the men’s 
tournament receives all of the 
media attention. In fact, I cannot 
recall a single time during the 
tournaments when I turned on 
ESPN and they were talking 
about the women’s tournament. 
For example, Sister Jean and the 
Loyola men’s basketball team 
received an extreme amount 
of media attention and were 
constantly in the conversation 
while the Notre Dame women’s 
basketball team received no 
attention 
despite 
the 
fact 
that they beat the undefeated 
University of Connecticut team 
in the Final Four, and Arike 
Ogunbowale went on to hit a 
buzzer beater to win it all. Of 
course, the Loyola team and their 
chaplain deserved attention as 
they were a fantastic Cinderella 
story, but perhaps some of the 
time spent covering them could 
have been better spent on the 
women’s tournament.
Another 
issue 
that 
accompanies the lack of media 
coverage is that it becomes very 
difficult to find articles and 
news about women’s sports. 

Even if someone is interested 
in reading articles and news on 
female athletics it takes at least 
five to 10 minutes of digging to 
find something interesting or 
relevant. For example, women’s 
sports receive only 4 percent of 
all sports media coverage and big 
sources like SportsCenter only 
devoted 1 percent of their on-air 
time to women’s athletics. 
This lack of representation 
becomes a huge problem for 
young female athletes as well. 
With so little media coverage, 
young girls struggle to find role 
models in their various sports. It 
is important that young athletes 
have someone they can look up 
to and relate to who encourages 
them to keep going and proves 
to them they can accomplish big 
things. Because this is so absent 
for female athletes, it may make it 
harder for young girls to feel like 
it’s worth it to continue to pursue 
their athletic careers. This leads 
to a higher rate of young girls who 
stop playing sports and therefore 
lose the many benefits that come 
from playing a sport such as 
higher self-esteem, positive body 
image, and lower anxiety levels.
All sports were unpopular 
at one point or another. It all 
comes down to exposure and 
marketing. Once women’s sports 
are given more coverage and the 
public becomes more exposed 
to the women’s sports world, 
these sports will become more 
popular. When women’s sports 
become more popular, people 
will become more educated on 
the topic. When people become 
more educated on the topic, the 
ability to close the pay gap and 
other inequalities is no longer 
an impossible task, but rather a 
goal that can be accomplished. 
When sports media starts to 
devote more of its time to female 
athletes, the fight for equality 
will become far less difficult and 
burdensome.

MARLEE BURRIDGE
Columnist

The struggle for diversty in physics

For much of its history, physics 
has been dominated by white men. 
Most well-known constants and 
equations are named after them, 
and when someone says “physicist,” 
what usually comes to mind is 
a white man. The stereotype is 
deeply rooted in the homogenous 
history of academia, but as our 
country and institutions become 
more diverse, shouldn’t the world 
of physics follow?
Sadly, this has not been the case. 
According to the 2016 population 
estimates based on the 2010 
U.S. census, 17.8 percent of the 
population identifies as Hispanic 
or Latino and 13.3 percent of the 
population identifies as Black 
or African American. However, 
according to statistics from the 
American Institute of Physics, only 
about 3.9 percent of the bachelor’s 
degrees in physics were awarded 
to African Americans and only 7.6 
percent to Hispanics.
To better understand the issue, 
I interviewed Brian Beckford, a 
presidential postdoctoral fellow 
here at the University of Michigan, 
to learn more about his own 
experience as a physicist of color, 
and an active advocate for diversity 
in STEM. His research concerns 
nuclear and particle physics.
When 
Beckford 
started 
as 
an 
undergraduate 
at 
Florida 
International University, he was 
initially interested in philosophy. 
Eventually, 
philosophy 
became 
limited in the answers it could 
provide him for the types of 
questions he had about how the 
universe works, and Beckford 
decided to switch his major to 
physics.
FIU boasts one of the most 
diverse student bodies in the 
country, but Beckford still found 
himself an outsider after switching 
majors.
“My friends and I joked that 
I was the best Black student in 
physics because I was the only 
Black student in the physics 
department at the time,” Beckford 

said.
While 
Beckford 
notes 
the 
department was never actively 
discriminatory, 
the 
idea 
of 
promoting diversity was never 
talked about. It was not seen as a 
priority of the department at the 
time.
Due to the fact that the 
traditional social and professional 
spheres of physics have not always 
strived to be inclusive, those who 
have been left on the outskirts 
have managed by creating their 
own spaces in which they could 
feel welcome in a community. 
The National Society of Black 
Physicists was formed in 1977, and 
since its inception has worked 
toward improving the experiences 
of Black physicists. Each year, 
NSBP hosts a national conference 
celebrating accomplishments by 
Black physicists from every field of 
physics. Beckford first attended this 
conference early in his graduate 
studies and goes back each year as 
his schedule allows.
“My faculty advisor at FIU 
and really good friend to this day, 
Professor Joerg Reinhold, German 
by descent, directed me towards 
the NSBP conference,” Beckford 
said. “(The conference) gave me 
some hope that there is a chance, 
and there is a space for physicists 
of color. I realized there would be a 
place for me in the field.”
Though conferences such as the 
NSBP meeting are well advertised 
at 
historically 
Black 
colleges 
and universities, they are not as 
talked about at institutions that 
are historically white. Helping 
to increase awareness of these 
kinds of opportunities is one way 
institutions such as ours can create 
a more welcoming, supportive 
environment for people from all 
different backgrounds.
“This year I am trying to 
encourage the department that 
we can attend the conference as a 
source of recruiting a more diverse 
group of students into the graduate 
program,” Beckford said.
In addition to his work as a 
researcher, as the department’s 
diversity, equity and inclusion 

committee chair, Beckford devotes 
as much time as he can to finding 
new ways the department can be 
more inclusive by bringing his 
experience as a project manager 
for the American Physical Society 
Bridge Program.
Many of Beckford’s proposed 
changes and improvements are 
focused on the recruitment of 
graduate 
students, 
including 
short-term projects, such as the 
new recruitment brochure. It 
highlights the inclusive ideals of 
the department. It is small, but 
represents 
an 
important 
step 
toward 
much-needed 
change. 
Long-term projects are in the 
works, but will take more time, 
as they require more cooperation 
and 
coordination 
among 
the 
department before these changes 
are seen as necessary in order to 
create a stronger, more diverse 
physics program at the University.
I was also curious about what 
Beckford thought could be done 
to increase representation among 
undergraduate students.
“Stronger 
discussions 
of 
career 
opportunities 
after 
an 
undergrad degree would be a 
great way to bring more diversity 
into the undergrad program,” he 
said. “Particularly among first-
generation students and students 
of color, there is a feeling of a need 
to give back, not only to their 
community, but to their family that 
might be sacrificing a lot for them to 
be there.”
I agree with Beckford, and a 
physics degree is really what you 
make it. You can put it to use many 
different ways. You can work in 
industry, research the frontiers of 
science in academia, affect social 
change as a teacher or community 
leader and much more. This is what 
makes a physics degree so exciting.
Once a school succeeds in 
recruiting a diverse student base, 
the next challenge is retainment. 
According to the Office of the 
Registrar 2016 report, of the 
freshmen 
who 
came 
to 
the 
University in 2012, 14.1 percent 
of those from underrepresented 
minority groups have left the 

University without finishing a 
degree. When comparing this with 
the 8 percent from all other groups 
that have left without finishing 
a degree, one can see the lack of 
inclusion most certainly plays a 
role in the discrepancy. We must 
recognize we can make the campus 
and departments more welcoming 
for everyone.
“The hard part is we have to 
change people’s mindset, and that 
diversity and inclusion is important 
for science,” Beckford said. “It’s 
people who do the science, so it 
follows that if you want the best 
science, you get the best people 
from all groups, and not just one.”
Academia is not always known 
for its adaptability, and tradition 
still plays a major role in how 
institutions and departments run. 
It can be tough to get every decision 
maker on board, as not everyone 
believes that a change is needed at 
all. However, this way of thinking 
goes against what we are trying to 
do in science, which is to advance 
human thought and make new 
discoveries. So even though old 
styles of mentoring and teaching 
might have worked when there 
was one majority group, we need 
to make improvements on how we 
do things and take every new factor 
into account.
After 
my 
interview 
with 
Beckford, I began to think about 
how critical it is to be more inclusive 
in the sciences. I feel it is especially 
important in today’s political and 
social climate to ensure that science 
is a beacon of inclusivity, of higher 
thinking and unlimited possibility, 
where all are welcome to create, 
discover and succeed.
At the end of our talk, Beckford 
asked, “How many great ideas were 
lost to fear, hate, and intolerance?” 
Too many to count, I would 
imagine. As we are those who strive 
towards higher understanding, we 
must never let untapped potential 
be wasted because of the fear of 
change or the lack of willingness 
to allocate resources and time to 
undertake the challenge. We can 
spark this change, right here, right 
now, at the University.

ROBERT DALKA
Columnist

