Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

NBA: Claims of racial officiating bias 'flat-out wrong'

An academic study of the National Basketball Association, whose playoffs continue tonight, suggests that a racial bias found in other parts of American society has existed on the basketball court as well. A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says that, during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players. Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics, found a corresponding bias in which black officials called fouls more frequently against white players, though that tendency was not as strong. They went on to claim that the different rates at which fouls are called “is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.”

I'm not going to argue that we live in a perfectly colorblind world, where people get along without the color of their skin being part of the equation. We all know that simply isn't true. All of us harbor some sort of prejudice, whether benign or overt. It can be based on experience, a lack of cultural understanding, or just plain old fear...or even a combination of all of the above. Anytime society can be divided and categorized based on subjective criteria, prejudice will exist. Anyone who's ever read Dr. Seuss' star of the Star Bellies will know and understand what I'm talking about though. Human nature is to like, prefer, and feel more comfortable with people like ourselves. Like seeks like. There's nothing sinister in that; it's simply part comfort level and part biological imperative.

I haven't looked closely at this study, nor do I really have any plans to do so. The data and it's conclusions may well be spot on. I can't help but wonder, though, where the search for bias comes to an end? When do we begin to celebrate the things that make us more alike than different? When do we stop looking for things that can divide us and begin searching for things that can unite us? And when do we begin to come to grips with the reality that disparity does not automatically translate to bias?

The NBA is a unique institution in our society, in that the players are predominantly African-American, referees are a mixed bag of Caucasians and African-Americans (male AND female), the Commissioner is a New York Jew, and the fan base populates all points on the racial and ethnic spectrum. Call me naive, but the NBA is the last place where racial bias would seem to be an issue. The success of the league is both worldwide and ignorant of racial and ethnic barriers.

While I cannot presume to speak for the referees in question, it's difficult to believe that, as scrutinized as their nightly performance is (et tu, Joey Crawford??), that ANY sort of bias would pass unnoticed. Few professionals are more scrutinized and their performance more dissected to the nth degree than an NBA referee. Players, fans, and league officials watch, scrutinize, and critique their every move, call, and facial tic. Call them incompetent, blind, or immature (and you'll be wrong if you do), but NBA referees have one of the hardest jobs out there, and most honest fans will agree. If you've ever officiated a basketball game at ANY level (and I have), you'll understand just how difficult their jobs are.

>NEW YORK -- The NBA responded strongly and angrily Wednesday to a front-page story in The New York Times alleging a racial bias in officiating, saying the study the report was based upon was wrong and contained flawed statistical methodology.

>"The story is based upon a paper that is flat-out wrong in its conclusions, and we're disappointed that they ran the story this way," NBA president of basketball operations Joel Litvin told ESPN.com, saying The Times ignored data the league provided to the newspaper to support its argument.

>The report in Wednesday's Times said an academic study of NBA officiating by a University of Pennsylvania assistant professor and Cornell graduate student found that white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players. The study also found that black officials called fouls more frequently against white players than black, but noted that that tendency was not as pronounced.

The data may well be correct, but I have to question the conclusions. The reality that there may be a disparity in the number of fouls called when comparing African-American and Caucasian players is not necessarily indicative of a pronounced bias among NBA referees.

There is never going to be absolute equality. Anytime you introduce imperfect humanity into an empirical discussion, biases and inequities will be evident. The question becomes whether it's actual bias or simply the nature of the beast.

The study, conducted by reviewing box scores over a 13-season span through 2004, found that the racial makeup of a three-man officiating crew affected calls by up to 4½ percent. But the box scores only show the referees' names and contain no information about which official made a particular call -- an information gap that the league seized upon in attacking the report.

"We conducted our own study with experts in mathematics and statistical analysis, and those experts, looking at far superior data that included 148,000 calls, concluded unequivocally that there was no racial bias in officiating," Litvin said. "You cannot use box scores to do a definitive analysis of whether race affects an individual action. We have the information on specific referees and the specific calls they made, and they don't."

I'll have to agree with Litvin on this point. Numbers only tell a small part of the story. IF you are serious about determining whether actual, demonstrable bias exists, numbers provide no context. Sometimes a reality is simply that. A statistically "significant" deviation only reflects conventional statistical analysis. What is lacking is the context within which the alleged bias occurs.

Humans being what we are, we'll never achieve absolute statistical parity when it comes to this sort of thing. I would imagine that there are numerous (and far more benign) reasons for the data obtained through this study. I'm also not at all certain that a study of box scores alone is sufficient to put forth a credible claim of racial bias among NBA referees. Again, statistical parity within the context of athletic competition is (by the very definition of competition) unobtainable. This isn't to say that racial bias doesn't exist, but I don't believe that a purely statistical study that relies solely on box scores will tell us anything useful and/or actionable.

There are still many places where racial bias and prejudice run rampant. I'm just not certain that an NBA arena is one of those places.