It is a common assumption that a small, liberal arts college with Division III athletics such as Skidmore would have strained student-athlete and non-student athlete relations. These frequent tensions stem from a disparity in economic, academic, and social privileges between the two groups. This phenomenon manifests itself as the red-side and blue-side division in the Dining Hall, where the red-side has traditionally represented the “artistic,” non-athletic population of Skidmore, while the blue-side houses the athletes. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought these tensions to light and even intensified them. While most aspects of regular campus life have been greatly limited by COVID regulations, athletes continue to attend practices and competitions. In the beginning of March, within the span of just a few days, the College increased the level of restrictions on campus while simultaneously approving the continuation of athletic events.
As seen with other problems heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, tensions on campus have gotten to the point of almost snapping. In fall 2020, there were multiple incidents of hostile interactions between the student-athlete and the non-student-athlete communities. Arguably, the most prominent one occurred over Halloween weekend, when a large gathering at Spa led to a physical confrontation that resulted in one student’s hospitalization. Causing a charged reaction from the student population, the event epitomized these community tensions.
Student Government Association (SGA) was immediate with their response, sending out an email the next day swiftly condemning the event and expressing dissatisfaction with the entire community. The administration, on the other hand, was not as quick to do so. No official communication from the College confirmed the events, nor did anyone from the administration explicitly denounce them. For the purpose of this article and the development of our community, it is essential to remember that true progress is going to come through community work and reconciliation. In other words, from the SGA email: “Though it’s easy to point the finger at a vague institutional ‘Skidmore,’ it is important for us to examine how we participate in the construction of Skidmore and what type of social and power relations and transgressions are we complicit in.”
Since we recognize that the most important work comes from within the community, we also must discuss the continual blatant disregard of the COVID-19 pledge we all signed in August, and were asked to re-sign in January. It would be impossible for us to track down how many examples of this there are. Still, social media and virus outbreaks reveal that a sizable portion of the student population continues to consciously put their classmates at risk. There is little to no accountability for those who commit offenses, from students or the administration, and there are presumably further discrepancies in the consequences for student-athletes and non-student-athletes.
Though the student-athlete scandals seemed to have died down this semester, this does not mean the tensions have. They have been further escalated by the discussions regarding a proposed club, Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). The original email the student who championed the club said their goal was to “create conversation on campus that will lead to more young, pro-liberty politicians and political actors.” One way the club planned to do this was to “improve nonathlete [sic.] and athlete relations on campus.” They emphasized that “fixing this issue will improve upon the more political aspects of this club (this is not a YAL related goal, but it will help achieve those above goals).”
The question is, what about student-athlete relations on campus is political? By making this a specific goal of the club, it insinuates that student-athletes are those whose voices are being silenced.
[Ramsay’s note: the YAL club’s mission to improve athlete and non-athlete relations on campus not only tells us that they think student-athlete voices are being silenced, but it also disregards and erases the identities of those athletes. I identify as a black female; I am one of fifteen black athletes on a varsity sports team and only make up a small portion of athletes of color. My voice would be more silenced than my white male counterpart. Now, a white athlete may have another marker of identity that causes them to face discrimination, but at the end of the day, they are white. If we are simply looking at race, my voice is silenced more than white athletes. If we are looking at just gender, my voice is silenced more than male athletes. If we are looking at race and gender, well, you get the picture. So whose voices do they actually want to be heard? I can tell you, based on YAL’s mission statement and endorsers, they are looking to amplify white voices on this campus, as if we haven’t seen that those voices were never silenced before.]
The semantics of student-athlete relations on campus may seem trivial with all that’s going on in the world. However, these tensions are simply reflections of environments we will find ourselves in throughout our whole lives. We are always going to be around people with more resources, who will be held to lower standards with less accountability. Student-athletes have to recognize their unofficial positions of power on campus and the level of influence these positions have. Considering Skidmore is a microcosm of the real world, it is probable that “a white [institution or] administration is not going to hold their white [members of power] responsible for the issues they cause because there is no one to hold the administration accountable,” remarks a Skidmore student-athlete who declined to be named. As we move forward, it is important that we as a community work towards holding our own peers accountable instead of relying on an absent administration to do the work for us. Only then will we be able to move past social hierarchies and reconcile relations between student-athletes and non-student-athletes.