Sports vs STEM and Free Markets

Below we have two skin tone grid diagrams of actual people.

Quick quiz: 

• Do you think the people represented in these skin tone grid diagrams are light or dark?  
• Would you say that these are diverse groups of people? 

Think about it, but it is sort of a trick question. Hint: try to avoid a knee jerk response, "Oh, there are black and brown people in the first skin tone grid, so it's diverse!"

If you just want to give a qualitative and relative answer, it should be clear that the second and larger skin tone grid is less diverse and made up of lighter people.

If you want to give a quantitative and absolute answer than the answer is "it depends" and the answer depends specifically  on certain threshold values. We will choose a light/dark threshold value of .61 and and a "diversity" threshold of .2. With these choices we get the following: 

• the first skin tone grid has a lightness percentage of about 41%, so about 59% of the individuals picked up in these pictures are deemed darker and the lightness spread is .21. So, with the above thresholds, this sample can be described as both darker and diverse. These pics were sampled from photos of college football players.
• In the second skin tone grid we have a lightness percentage of about 83%, so about 17% of the individuals picked up in these pictures are deemed darker and the lightness spread is .12. So, with the above thresholds, this sample can be described as both lighter and not diverse. These pics were sampled from university math faculty in Chicago. 

These seem like reasonable answers and are what you would expect if you have ever stepped on a college campus, opened your eyes, and looked around.

It appears that the diversity problems for college sports have been partially, if not largely, solved over the last 70 years since Brown V Board of Education but STEM departments, students and faculty, not so much.

Why is that? What are the differences?

• Enormous resources are allocated for the scouting, recruitment, training, and retention for athletes. No similar effort is being done to scout mathematical talent in the hood, barrio, reservation, or Appalachia.
• I like to complain about the American obsession with sports, but the one aspect that I actually like is that sports operate as more of a meritocracy. Nobody really wants to watch or cheer on athletes that suck unless they are little kids, so real excellence is rewarded.  Meanwhile in academics, excuses are made, standards have been lowered, and a minimal effort leads to social promotion so it's no surprise results are so mediocre.
• Detailed results about sports teams at all levels are made transparently available. If you want to know where your talented athlete child should play ball, you can often find detailed stats on the performance of the team, and, at the college level, pictures and bio's of all of the athletes and coaches on the schools webpage. On the other hand if your child wants to study math in college, good luck trying to find any data on the gender/ethnic/racial percentages of students graduating with a math major at a particular college. The data is not readily available so you can't make an informed decision. 

In short, without the free flow of information, efficient markets can't function, and there is no reason to expect any change in the STEM education market. 

Finally, and for the record, I am not one of these simpletons who thinks that the "free" market is the complete solution to the question of the allocation of all resources. That's religion. I do believe that the academy could do with a dose of enforced market transparency however.