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

Abstract

This multiple case study analyzes institutional responses to sex and gender bias incidents in student athletics programs and messaging around inclusion and antidiscrimination between 2015 and 2019. This study seeks to uncover, understand, and work to transform the embedded institutional values that harm sex and gender minority (SGM) students on college campuses and in student athletics by investigating three cases at Canisius College, Columbia University, and Harvard University. These cases were chosen due to their active athletics cultures and high-profile incidents involving SGM students. Analysis indicates that institutions are likely to: (a) limit their responsibility for bias incidents; (b) individualize discriminatory behavior to the perpetrators, ignoring embedded institutional cultures; and (c) 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. Institutions must commit to materially support students through proactive measures rather than relying on nominal and reactive action that only further serves to exacerbate discrimination.