Study Claims Racial Bias Among NBA Referees In Foul Calls

Study Claims Racial Bias In NBA Referees’ Foul Calls

A study by Univ. of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business associate professor Justin Wolfers and Cornell Univ. grad student Joseph Price found that white NBA referees from ’91-’04 “called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players,” according to a front-page piece by Alan Schwarz of the N.Y. TIMES. Wolfers and Price also found a “corresponding bias in which black officials called fouls more frequently against white players, though that tendency was not as strong.” The study claims the differing 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.” NBA Commissioner David Stern said that the league commissioned its own study, conducted this March by the Segal Company, after the league “saw a draft copy of the paper last year.” Stern: “We think our cut at the data is more powerful, more robust, and demonstrates that there is no bias” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/2). NBA President of League & Basketball Operations Joel Litvin added the Wolfers-Price study “is wrong. The fact is there is no evidence of racial bias in foul calls made by NBA officials and that is based on a study conducted by our experts” (AP, 5/2).

THE BIGGER PICTURE: Three independent experts who looked at both the Wolfers-Price study and the NBA’s findings said that they “considered the Wolfers-Price argument far more sound.” The league denied a request for its data, with officials’ and players’ names removed, because it “feared that the league’s confidentiality agreement with referees could be violated if the identities were determined through box scores.” Yale Law School professor Ian Ayres said of an implicit association bias in the NBA, “I would be more surprised if it didn’t exist. There’s a growing consensus that a large proportion of racialized decisions is not driven by any conscious race discrimination, but that it is often just driven by unconscious, or subconscious, attitudes.” California State Univ.-Bakersfield associate professor David Berri added, “It’s not about basketball -– it’s about what happens in the world.”

MORE REAX FROM WITHIN THE NBA: Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban said of the study’s findings, “We’re all human. We all have our own prejudice. That’s the point of doing statistical analysis. It bears it out in this application, as in a thousand others.” T’Wolves G Mike James and 76ers F Alan Henderson both said that they “did not think black or white officials had treated them differently.” Nets President Rod Thorn said of the Wolfers-Price study, “I don’t believe it. I think officials get the vast majority of calls right” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/2).