John Calipari’s hiring at Arkansas shows a looming crisis at U.S. colleges and universities

Decorated college basketball coach John Calipari is leaving the University of Kentucky to take a job with the University of Arkansas, news outlets reported on Sunday.

Coaches change jobs all the time, but this one has some unfortunate echoes of broader issues in higher education at the moment.

Calipari’s move is reportedly being financed, in part, by his friend John Tyson, an heir to the Tyson chicken empire and a conservative megadonor from Arkansas. Tyson will also reportedly help finance the school’s “name, image and likeness” fund, a pool of money used to attract potential recruits with deals they can use to make money from advertising. But the University of Arkansas will be on the hook for millions of dollars, too, since Calipari’s salary is reportedly millions more per year than what Arkansas’ outgoing coach was being paid. 

This has me thinking about a disturbing trend I’ve noticed in college athletics lately: Universities are axing their diversity programs while also plunging millions of dollars into their athletics programs. The University of Arkansas, for example, dissolved all of its diversity, equity and inclusion-related jobs last year in accordance with conservative lawmakers’ crusade against diversity programs. 

And when you cut programs meant to attract and retain nonwhite students — particularly Black students — while doubling down on efforts to recruit Black athletes, you’re sending a clear message about the kinds of nonwhite students you want to actively recruit; that is, the ones most likely to generate profits for you. It’s an exploitative arrangement. 

The University of Arkansas isn’t alone, although other colleges aren’t making these decisions of their own volition. The University of Texas at Austin slashed its DEI programs — and the jobs required to run them — after Texas Republicans passed a law banning the programs at schools. Still, the university still plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on new athletics facilities seen as a potential boon for recruitment. The University of Florida, meantime, slashed its DEI programs even as it committed millions to its athletics programs for the years ahead. 

I should note that my worried tone here comes from experience. At Arizona State University, I led a Black, student-run organization that traditionally received funding from the school — until white students started to complain that the organization was, by nature, discriminatory. It was essentially a prelude to the anti-DEI push we’re seeing today. University leadership gradually stripped our funding and advised us to partner with the football program on events if we wanted some of it back. The conceit here seemed obvious: Football is entertaining and, crucially, a revenue-generating program. It was a painfully ignorant misunderstanding of the value organizations that foster diversity can bring to the university. 

Looking back, it feels like what I experienced was the beginning of a trend we’re seeing nowadays: a nationwide neglect of nonwhite students — in fact, a dissolution of resources meant to serve them — while universities plunge millions of dollars into the athletes — disproportionately Black — who serve them. Fundamentally, I’m not mad at Calipari for getting millions of dollars to coach a team mainly consisting of Black athletes. I’m disturbed that the University of Arkansas seem far more comfortable investing in him and other shiny new toys for their cash-cow athletics programs than they are investing in DEI professionals who coach other Black and brown students daily.