Caitlin Clark’s NCAA Tournament will be ruined by diversity, equity, and inclusion

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are the biggest threats facing Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the NCAA Tournament

It’s not Angel Reese or JuJu Watkins. Or even Dawn Staley’s undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks. It’s DEI ideology, the sum of allegedly anti-racist brainwashing policies and mindset that rules academia.

The selection committee should have drawn up brackets that made a Dream Teams Final Four a possibility. Instead, the committee focused on DEI.

DEI persuaded the 12-member NCAA selection committee to hand Clark and the Hawkeyes the most difficult Final Four path in women’s basketball.

The committee — Lisa Dickerson, Derita Dawkins, Denee Barracato, Jill Bodensteiner, Jenny Bramer, Amanda Braun, Amy Folan, Alex Gary, Lizzie Gomez, Josh Heird, Jill Shields, and Lynn Tighe — placed Clark in the same bracket as Kansas State, UCLA, and LSU, giving the second-ranked Hawkeyes the most difficult draw of the tournament.

Iowa has played Kansas State three times in the past two seasons. The Hawkeyes have lost twice. The fourth-seeded Wildcats feature arguably the best post player in the country in 6-foot-6 senior Ayoka Lee. Iowa and Kansas State will likely meet in the Sweet 16. If the Hawkeyes get past KSU, odds are good that UCLA’s 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts or LSU and Angel Reese will await them in the Elite Eight. LSU, of course, is the defending national champion. The Tigers beat Iowa in last year’s title game.

The Hawkeyes struggle with size and physical play. The selection committee stacked Iowa’s region with big, physical teams.

This makes zero sense unless you understand diversity, equity, and inclusion. Before I connect the dots, let me add one more piece of context.

Why is it important for Clark and Iowa to advance to the Final Four?

It should be obvious. Clark has single-handedly carried women’s college hoops to a place of unprecedented relevance and importance. She’s the Tiger Woods of the sport. She’s must-see TV. Television ratings for women’s basketball have skyrocketed this year as Clark chased scoring records and performed a female impersonation of Steph Curry.

If Clark, Reese, USC’s freshman sensation JuJu Watkins, and Coach Staley’s South Carolina squad all reached the Final Four, the women’s Final Four would likely draw a bigger audience than the men’s tournament. If Clark fails to reach the Final Four, the audience and relevance are cut in half, if not more.

The selection committee should have drawn up brackets that made a Dream Teams Final Four a possibility.

Instead, the committee focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is just a fancy configuration of words that means “punish white people.”

Clark is white. Her coach, Lisa Bluder, is white. Most of Clark’s teammates are white. Iowa is seen as the white Cinderella of women’s college basketball. Liberal sports fans prefer Staley or Reese over Clark. They don’t want Cinderella making it back to the ball. USA Today published a piece about the importance of black players being the face of women’s college basketball. A white woman wrote the article.

You cannot rise as an administrator in women’s college athletics without being a devout liberal and proponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The women’s selection committee is a confederacy of DEI-believing liberals. It’s a group of athletics directors and deputy athletics directors who promote DEI.

They demonstrate their “anti-racism” by being racist against white people.

That’s how Iowa received the toughest draw in the tournament. The well-intentioned selection committee bent over backward proving it did not favor Clark and Iowa. It did that by punishing Clark and Iowa.

The committee would rather the women’s tournament underachieve in terms of relevance than risk giving Iowa an easy path to the Final Four. Giving Iowa an easy path is what makes the most sense for women’s college basketball.

Clark is leaving the NCAA for the WNBA after this season. Women’s college basketball has one chance to cash in on the Caitlin Clark phenomenon. Yes, she advanced to the championship game a year ago. But that run caught the public by surprise. We had barely heard of Clark last season. This year, she’s been the biggest star in all of college athletics. She’s 1979 Larry Bird and Magic Johnson rolled into a female package.

It would be a tragedy if she doesn’t make the Final Four.

Most of the women’s college basketball establishment is rooting against Clark. They’re hardcore leftists. Clark is the wrong color. She’s heterosexual. They have to root against what’s in the best interest of the sport to stay loyal to their destructive diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda.

Many of the referees officiating the women’s games are slaves to DEI, too.

If I had to bet, Clark and the Hawkeyes will get bounced from the tournament before the Final Four.