Professor to Study NCAA SAT Rule

In response to criticism from Black educators a Harvard professor will work with two other professors to revise National Collegiate Athletic Association NCAA rule requiring minimum academic requirements for freshmen who participate in varsity sports.

The NCAA legislation, initiated by President Bok, has been attacked as faculty discriminatory.

The study, being conducted by Robert E Klitgaaid associate professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government will examine the rule known as Proposal 48--to see what impact in will have on college athletics.

Proposal 48 would require freshmen atheletes to have minimum Scholastic Aptitude fest SAD conluned Score of 700 and minimum high hool grade point average of 20 line want to play on a varsity team.

The role designed and supported by an American Council on Education committee headed by Bok, is scheduled to go into effect in 1986.

Rias

Black educators however, have said that the SAT's are culturally based against minority students. Moreover opponents of Proposal 48 also say the new rule would exclude most Black Freshman from varsity competition because the mean combined SAT score for Blacks is 694, while for whites it is 925.

Klitgaard and two other professors-Harold W. Bundy, associate professor of business at Cambridge State University in Louisiana and Elias Blake president of Clark College, will look at a selected group of Black colleges, to determine the potential impact of the new rule.

The study, sponsored by the National Association for Equal Opportunity (NAFEO), will be completed this spring, Klitgaard said

"We will try to show that athletes will not be at a greater academic risk than other students if lower academic standards are used," Luady said.

The committee will look at options other than Proposal 18 and will compile academic data for both athletes and non athletes in hopes of changing the regulations, Samuel Meyers, NAFEO president, said yesterday.

One possible option which they will consider, Klitgaard said, is his own" 10 percent option."

Under that plan, college freshmen would be allowed to participate in varsity athletics if their high school grades and SAT scores are above those of the 10th percentile of a recent graduating class at their particular college.

The current NCAA rule, which would be replaced by Proposal 48 in 1986, excludes freshman with a high school average of less than 2.0.

But Klitgaard said the current rule is "no rule at all, because less than five percent of all high school graduates have an average better than 2.0, and most of those who don't aren't athletes." Klitgaard said this was the case because most athletes receive special treatment from high school teachers.

Other Action

Last month, the NCAA rejected a proposal made by Bok's American Council on Education committee to increase university control over intercollegiate athletics.

The association, however, unanimously voted in its own watered-down proposal to give universities a greater say in NCAA decision making.

Proposal 36, the accepted plan, authorized the creation of an appointed board of 44 university presidents with the power to advise the NCAA on legislation in the area of academics and finance.