101samplerogerianargument x1.positiveeffectsofimmigrants.edited11 x
Now that you have developed a topic and spent time reading and processing research on your chosen topic, it′s your opportunity to contribute with your own voice and perspective. Your task is to make your own argument about the topic you researched for you.
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Research Argument Essay Final Draft
Ending the Exploitation of College Athletes
One hundred years ago, the NCAA was founded to protect young adults from dangerous and exploitative practices of college athletics. Now, however, the NCAA is a massive regulatory body that generates millions of tax-exempt dollars (Treadway par. 9), and though their responsibilities are extensive, they primarily regulate the amateur status of athletes. Of course, this amateur status has one main requirement: they cannot earn income for their athletic performance. Recently, there has been concern that because college athletics is a “multimillion-dollar entertainment industry” (Hruby par. 1), and because so many college athletes struggle financially, perhaps we should reconsider whether or not college athletes should earn income for their performance.
This issue specifically impacts the student athletes, but in the bigger picture, it also can impact their families, and it can even affect the school academically and athletically. This is an urgent issue because many student athletes are not only putting their body on the line physically, they are also putting it online the mentally, which has more of an impact on them down the road. The issue is complicated, however, due to disagreements surrounding scholarships as well as whether or not paying college athletes will tarnish the sport. Furthermore, the funding structures of higher ed are so complex that there are confusions and disagreements about whether or not colleges and universities can afford to pay athletes. For athletes, colleges, and the NCAA to work together to ensure college athletics remains “fair, safe, [and] equitable” (NCAA par. 2) and that “educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount” (NCAA par. 2), more education and discourse is needed.
One of the most common positions regarding paying college athletes is a simple one: they are already compensated with scholarships and the opportunity to work with coaches and trainers. The NCAA themselves see it as a fair exchange: “Athletes receive a free education, are trained by coaches and athletic trainers at the top of their profession and receive free academic tutoring (among other things) to play and make millions for their schools” (Hayes par. 8). Furthermore, Dave Anderson, who has done research on the common voices in this issue, reports that some students at elite universities receive a scholarship amount that exceeds the tuition amount, which gives them cash for other expenses (par. 6). He continues on and explains that “[e]ven if a student is not actually receiving money towards tuition, they often get expert, NFL level coaching and freebies such as housing, meals, clothing, medical care, and professional development. Oh, and these perks go to those who are getting full rides, too” (Anderson par. 7). It is fair to include all scholarship funds as well as perks and services when considering the full compensation package of a college athlete. Some athletes for big-money sports, such as basketball, do have access to impressive privileges.
On the other hand, some argue that college athletics would not be the same if athletes were paid. Anderson explains that “[a]thletes play sports in college for two reason [sic]: the love of the game and the change [sic] to make it to the pros” (par. 15). But if they were paid like professional athletes are paid, it would erase these noble pursuits. Furthermore, paying students introduces a number of complications and contingencies such as contract disputes, strikes, and lockouts. It is understandable to fear that introducing income into the equation will bring a number of complications. These might influence the age-old belief that playing college sports is supposed to nurture students and teach them discipline and focus, and this all comes not from a love of money, but of the game.
Another common response to the question of whether college athletes should be paid income comes from a financial responsibility standpoint. Many argue that college athletes are young, inexperienced, financially irresponsible, and because there aren’t currently regulatory bodies or organizations to “guide their financial decisions” (Lemmons par. 11), compensating athletes would be a “complete disaster” (Lemmons par. 11). This is an important detail not to overlook in the debate, as it represents one of the potential negative ramifications of paying younger student-athletes. And although some of the voices articulating this position do so in bad faith, such as Cowherd, who, whether or not he realizes, evokes racist stereotypes to fear that “they’re gonna spend it on weed and kicks!” (qtd. in Lemmons par. 11), most of these positions are concerned about the wellbeing of college athletes and their future financial security.
As the above has shown, this debate is far from over. To answer this complex question, this essay will propose that college athletes should have the right to unionize in order to negotiate pay to receive a livable wage. I should note that I am a student athlete myself, so even though I have direct insight into the life of a college athlete, I will present information and points of view from others, such as law professors and sports journalists, as evidence for the necessity of compensating college athletes. There are two main reasons college athletes deserve the right to unionize: the extensive unpaid labor that student athletes give to their schools and how economically feasible it will be for colleges to pay them. Not paying college athletes, I hope to prove, amounts to exploitation, and solutions that help satisfy the various concerns circulating within this topic are needed.
The primary reason for paying athletes is that athletes experience financial hardship because they have many obligations outside of game performances, such as study hall, practices, film study and team dinners, and bonding exercises that negate their opportunity to work for pay. Marc Edelman, a law professor at CUNY, notes that “[t]he typical Division I college football player devotes 43.3 hours per week to his sport — 3.3 more hours than the typical American work week” (Edelman, “21 Reasons” par. 3). So this means that in addition to being a full-time student, which can amount to around 30 hours per week, athletes put in an additional 40 hours or so. This contributes to inequity. Here’s what I mean: if a student doesn’t have family financial support, they will be in poverty because they have no opportunity to work to support themselves, due to the large amount of hours it requires to be a student athlete. Edelman, in an article he wrote for the Cardozo Law Review, argues along similar lines. He concludes that allowing college athletes the right to unionize and negotiate pay is an ethical imperative because “eighty-five percent of college athletes live below the poverty line” (Edelman, “The Future” 1632) even though their labor generates the millions of dollars’ worth of “payments to administrators, athletic directors, and coaches” (Edelman, “The Future” 1631).
In fact, those 70+ hour workweeks generate substantial revenue, contributing enough to school budgets for it to be a financially solvent decision to pay athletes. Many have done the calculations to explain how valuable players, especially Division I players, are. For example, Lemmons breaks it down by looking at economic reports from Business Insider that focus on basketball players: “It is estimated that the University of Louisville has the most valuable players at $1.72 million per year based on the program’s $45.6 million in annual revenue. Overall, the average Division I player is worth $170,098 per year” (par. 8). This shows that the money is in budgets to compensate athletes with a livable wage. Additionally, as Patrick Hruby, a journalist who has investigated and written extensively on the NCAA, explains, because the definition of “amateur” will no longer rely on complex rules governing “compensation,” the NCAA budgets and college budgets will no longer have to allocate vast amounts of funds to investigations and litigations into gifts and services that might have broken rules (par. 2). In other words, the NCAA could actually save money by changing what it means to be an amateur and paying athletes an income in exchange for their labor.
All who are concerned with resolving this debate and keeping college sports noble, fun, and fair should consider the benefits of unionizing. Allowing college athletes the right to unionize in order to negotiate a livable wage is one of the most reasonable paths forward because the union can act as the governing body to help ensure that the revenue athletes generate and how colleges spend that money, including allocating amounts for wages, remains fair. It will be difficult, I’m sure, for administrators, athletic directors, and coaches to revise budgets and perhaps even see a small percentage cut from their salaries. But these parties should also consider the potential harm done to college athletics if – in the long run – their salaries remain in the millions while such a large percentage of their athletes remain below the poverty line and more and more ethical violations are publicly known and litigated. Instead of standing by and letting the pressure of these forces jeopardize the future of college athletics, colleges and unions can have the freedom to come to individual agreements as to how to translate scholarships and services to “wages,” as well as how to pay livable wages to non-revenue generating sports. Unions can also help athletes manage their income and also serve as the litigating body to resolve the contingencies and disagreements that might otherwise result in discord, such as strikes or lockouts.
Most importantly, though, allowing college athletes the right to unionize in order to negotiate a living wage is just the right thing to do. It signals to athletes that they are more than bodies who generate revenue they never see. It suggests that they are valued and deserve to live above poverty, even as they receive an education and potential opportunities for their future. The pursuit of higher ed shouldn’t just be limited to athletes who can afford it because they have outside financial support to take the place of a part-time job. Athletes will potentially even identify more strongly as alumni and be more prone to future donations of funds or services to the causes of the college. Laboring for 70+ hours per week is enough to earn a livable wage as well as an education, and it’s time we give college student athletes a fair shot at success.
Works Cited
Anderson, Dave. “Top 10 Reasons College Athletes Should Not Be Paid.” ListLand.com, 17 Mar 2016, https://www.listland.com/top-10-reasons-college-athletes-not-be-paid/. Accessed 1 Jun 2018.
Edelman, Marc. “21 Reasons Why Student-Athletes Are Employees and Should Be Allowed to Unionize.” Forbes.com, 30 Jan. 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcedelman/2014/01/30/21-reasons-why-student-athletes-are-employees-and-should-be-allowed-to-unionize/#55cdeaa68d05. Accessed 6 Jun. 2018.
—— “The Future of College Athlete Players Unions: Lessons Learned from Northwestern University and Potential Next Steps in the College Athletes’ Rights Movement.” Cardozo Law Review, vol. 38, no. 5, Jun. 2017, pp. 1627-1662. EBSCOhost. Accessed 5 Jun. 2018.
Hayes, Matt. “Report Concludes 86 Percent of Student Athletes Live in Poverty.” SportingNews.com, 15 Jan. 2013, http://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/4465460-student-athletes-poverty-paid-scholarships-ncpa-texas-duke. Accessed 7 Jun. 2018.
Hruby, Patrick. “This is How to Pay College Athletics.” Deadspin, 06 Mar. 18, https://deadspin.com/this-is-how-to-pay-college-athletes-1823353456. Accessed 5 Jun. 2018.
Lemmons, Malcolm. “College Athletes Getting Paid? Here Are Some Pros and Cons.” HuffPost, 29 Mar. 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/college-athletes-getting-paid-here-are-some-pros-cons_us_58cfcee0e4b07112b6472f9a. Accessed 8 Jun. 2018.
Lennox, Kevin. “College Athletes Should Not Get Paid.” Logos Lite,14 Feb. 2017, https://www.niacc.edu/logoslite/2017/02/14/college-athletes-should-not-get-paid/. Accessed 2 Jun. 2018.
NCAA. “NCAA Mission Statement.” The Citadel Newsroom, 06 Mar. 2007, http://www.citadel.edu/root/ncaa_mission. Accessed 8 Jun. 2018.
Treadway, Dan. “Why Does the NCAA Exist?.” Huffpost, 06 Dec. 2013, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-treadway/johnny-manziel-ncaa-eligibility_b_3020985.html. Accessed 7 Jun. 2018.
Surname 1
Lennox Gekanana
Professor Kayla Pohl
Eng 101
8/10/2021
Annotated Bibliography – Positive and Negative Effects of Immigrants in the U.S
Becerra, David, et al. “Fear vs. facts: Examining the economic impact of undocumented immigrants in the US.” J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 39 (2012): 111.
In this article, Becerra depicts that there are numerous positive impacts of undocumented immigrants across the United States. The article explains that undocumented immigrants have led to the economic improvement of federal, state, as well as local governments through taxes and stimulating job growth. Becerra reveals that undocumented immigrants contribute more money in taxes to the federal government than they consume in services (Becerra 111). However, the article also explains various negative impacts of these undocumented immigrants, showing that they increase the cost of providing law enforcement, health care, and education services. It is important to note that the article explores the importance of immigrants in the United States as being more than the negative impacts, revealing that the United States should encourage immigration.
Chassamboulli, Andri, and Giovanni Peri. “The labor market effects of reducing the number of illegal immigrants.” Review of Economic Dynamics 18.4 (2015): 792-821.
This article explores the controversy that has come to the United States on whether immigrants have positively impacted the market economy or negatively affected the economy. Chassamboulli and Giovanni Peri explain in the article that the intention to reduce the number of illegal immigrants would cause a significant impact on the U.S economy. The article reveals that illegal immigrants in the states play a critical role especially in the labor market, as they provide a variety of options and their wages are lower. Chassamboulli and Giovanni Peri depict that the presence of these illegal immigrants have positively impacted the U.S economy, reducing the labor costs and creating more jobs per employment because there are more immigrants (Chassamboulli 792-812). The importance of the article is to explicitly explore the positive effects of immigrants in the U.S economy, and the impact that could arise as a result of reducing the number of illegal immigrants in the states.
Diwan, Sadhna, Satya S. Jonnalagadda, and Shantha Balaswamy. “Resources predicting positive and negative affect during the experience of stress: A study of older Asian Indian immigrants in the United States.” The Gerontologist 44.5 (2004): 605-614.
This article explains the risks as well as resources associated with predicting the occurrence of both positive and negative effects especially among the Indians and Latinos immigrants who experience stressful life across the United States. In this article, Diwan et al used the life-stress model of psychological well-being in establishing the risks. According to Diwan et al, numerous data was collected from various respondents especially those above 50 years in the Southeastern United States, and negative binomial regression analysis was used as a method for examining the correlation between negative and positive effects (Diwan et al., 605-614). The article explicitly revealed that different coping resources influence positive and negative effects, with being female depicted to have increased the risk for poor positive and increased negative effects. However, the article depicts satisfaction with friendship or cultural relationships relating to American predicted a positive effect. The importance of this article is to critically explore the positive and negative effects of resources on immigrants, as well as cognitive and structural interventions that increased opportunities for racial and social integration.
Park, Hyun-Sun, and Allen Rubin. “The mediating role of acculturative stress in the relationship between acculturation level and depression among Korean immigrants in the US.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 36.5 (2012): 611-623.
In this article Park and Allen explain the path model method, used in the United States to reveal the influence of acculturation among Korean immigrants. The path model proposes that the acculturation level influences significantly depression among Korean immigrants through acculturative stress. Park and Allen still explore the relationship between depression and the level of acculturation, showing that acculturative stress supports a mediating role in the relationship (Park 611-623). The article also exposes the acculturation level to be among the factors for depression among Korean immigrants in the United States. The importance of the article is explicitly to depict the negative impacts to United States immigrants resulting from acculturation level.
Stephan, Walter G., et al. “The effects of feeling threatened on attitudes toward immigrants.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 29.1 (2005): 1-19.
This article explores three studies that are used to integrate threats by examining the roles played by threats in attitude towards immigrants. According to Stephan, the first study showed that the attitude towards the immigrant group was most negative when it posed both realistic and symbolic threats to the in-group. The second study revealed that negative stereotype developed by an immigrant leads to a negative attitude toward the immigrant group as compared to other types of stereotypes (Stephan 1-19). The third study was revealed to have anxiety leading to negative attitudes towards immigrants. Stephan explains that high levels of intergroup anxiety led to a negative attitude, and empathy with the immigrants significantly reduced these negative attitudes. The importance of this article is to explore the implications of these negative effects and practices, and how they are managed in the United States to ensure equity is achieved.
Work Cited
Becerra, David, et al. “Fear vs. facts: Examining the economic impact of undocumented immigrants in the US.” J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 39 (2012): 111.
Chassamboulli, Andri, and Giovanni Peri. “The labor market effects of reducing the number of illegal immigrants.” Review of Economic Dynamics 18.4 (2015): 792-821.
Diwan, Sadhna, Satya S. Jonnalagadda, and Shantha Balaswamy. “Resources predicting positive and negative affect during the experience of stress: A study of older Asian Indian immigrants in the United States.” The Gerontologist 44.5 (2004): 605-614.
Park, Hyun-Sun, and Allen Rubin. “The mediating role of acculturative stress in the relationship between acculturation level and depression among Korean immigrants in the US.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 36.5 (2012): 611-623.
Stephan, Walter G., et al. “The effects of feeling threatened on attitudes toward immigrants.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 29.1 (2005): 1-19.
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