A Look Ahead to DEI in Collegiate Esports for the 2024-2025 School Year

The impacts of an impending election year mired by culture wars, progress made over the past year, and the looming challenges ahead as we continue to evolve an entrenched community culture

Cora Kennedy - 8/27/24

Introduction

Marking my third installment in this series, my yearly review of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in collegiate esports takes on a different tone than previous versions this time around. Whereas my installment for the 2022-23 school year was written out of frustration and hopelessness and my 2023-24 school year version pivoted to a more hopeful forward-looking vision, this year takes a realistic look at the present and what looms ahead of us as we head into the school year. This article focuses on the present not only in terms of collegiate esports, but the esports industry as a whole, where we sit in the higher education landscape, and how the state of our country and world weigh heavily on the mind of our students too. As esports programs become more commonplace on college campuses, further discussions about proper integration with campus environments are warranted and, just like any other part of campus, there is a continual struggle for recognition as professionals, funding, and social support.

In the past year we have seen esports marred by numerous scandals, taken over by blind sportswashing, devolve further into a drama-driven culture, and offer consistently less opportunities for people to grow and succeed than before, despite its ever growing expansion as an industry. In a similar vein, collegiate esports has seen much of the same. Every day, the industry seems to be splitting more between two kinds of program/staff mentality: winning over everything or prioritizing student experience. For the programs who can walk that line, wonderful results come out of it. But for many, it is a choice of both resources and attitude that can have ramifications far beyond what can be seen at first glance. While the divisive nature of collegiate esports isn't anything new, the gulf of separation between these two mentalities seems wider than ever lately.

As we head into the school year and students return to campus to start a new competitive season, these divided mentalities also (generally) produce very different attitudes towards DEI and the struggles of marginalized students within an already marginalized industry. An incredibly divisive election year looms ahead of us, and along with it comes the inherent politicization of student identities that draw their time and energy away from esports. While the election is not the responsibility of anyone in esports, the effect it has on students and staff alike goes beyond our control as well. On campuses around the nation, much thought has been put towards how the campus can effectively encourage informed and active citizenship during this election cycle, but many times esports professionals are left out of the discussion. Responding to students in crisis when the crisis is entirely out of your control is something very few people have experience with and this fall semester is shaping up to be a test for all involved.

While, statistically, there have been great strides in representation and DEI in collegiate esports, anecdotal evidence leaves a lot to be desired. There has been consistent growth year-over-year in almost every category represented in the yearly Trends In Collegiate Esports Survey in terms of DEI, a point to be celebrated and recognized as many programs buck the demographic trends seen by their, broadly speaking, Primarily White Institutions (PWI). However, existence is different from representation and numerical perspectives only tell one part of the story. In the end, the pervasive culture of esports, mixed with the development and growing attitudes of students, means that collegiate esports still sits on the precipice of being relevant or being relegated, despite the growing history among many programs. Embracing and welcoming strangers different from ourselves is a core part of what founded esports, and still today it is at the beating heart of everything we do, but many seem to have lost sight of that along the way.

Author’s Note

I wanted to write this piece because I think it is important to come to a collective understanding about where we stand as we enter the new school year. The start of a school year is a time where programs can refresh their practices, re-establish norms, and continue to mold themselves into their ideal form. It is also the ideal time to re-evaluate how you go about things to ensure that they are inclusive and encouraging of diversity as you are set to welcome new students to the program, either from a pool of recruits or walk-ons from the campus community. While I acknowledge that with all of the things that programs have to worry about, DEI may fall way down the ladder, it is still important to consider and in fact beneficial to include it as a component of most practices instead of a separate item altogether.

I am writing this piece to, in part, hold myself accountable. I am coming into the school year with several ideas and new practices I want to implement and only time will tell how well I do. But I want this piece to serve as me drawing the line in the sand, saying I am committing to them, and my hope is that this can also inspire others to do the same. While I am an outspoken advocate, there is always still work to do and it has been on the forefront of my mind as I look ahead towards the return of my students to campus. I am always happy to have conversations if you have questions or thoughts that you would like another perspective on. I am by no means an expert and my views on DEI come from my experiences in the industry and are shaded by the implicit bias that I carry. However, I will do my best to help and I will, at minimum, direct people to others in the space who may have better answers, many of whom I consider close friends and colleagues in this effort.

Some of the best people to talk with about DEI in esports are (in no particular order) below. Also, if I missed someone, I’m sorry! There are so many people I see as direct mentors and colleagues in the DEI space that it can be hard to keep track sometimes:

• Stephanie “Keilet” Takemoto (she/her) - Experienced higher-ed professional working on a PhD in DEI in esports who I have bounced ideas off of more times than I can count. An amazing and wise resource that I am lucky to have as a friend and trusted partner as I pursue DEI work more seriously.?
• Harley “HarleyLAdler” Adler (they/them) (Discord handle) - Director at Marywood University and one of my closest friends in the space. They continue to bring a well thought out and compassionate perspective to all of our discussions and I lean on them frequently for problem solving and a fresh set of eyes and they consistently go above and beyond to help.?
• Kaitlin “Kaitlineh” Teniente (she/her) - Director at St. Mary’s University and an amazingly outspoken voice and strong ally in esports. She and I have vented to each other frequently and share our experiences and ideas in the goal of bettering our programs. She was someone who inspired me to first start talking about DEI so I am eternally grateful.?

A Primer on Terms

Thank you to the College of the Environment at the University of Washington for having a wonderful page with all of these terms so thoroughly defined!

• DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.?
• Diversity: Socially, it refers to the wide range of identities. It broadly includes race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, veteran status, physical appearance, etc. It also involves different ideas, perspectives and values.
• Equity: The fair treatment, access, opportunity and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that prevent the full participation of some groups. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that fairness regarding these unbalanced conditions is necessary to provide equal opportunities to all groups.
• Inclusion: The act of creating an environment in which any individual or group will be welcomed, respected, supported and valued as a fully participating member. An inclusive and welcoming climate embraces and respects differences.
• LGBTQIA+: An inclusive term for those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual.

Context on the Previous Year

Any reflection on DEI should be, first and foremost, founded upon statistics, so let’s dive into some statistics about representation from a variety of DEI metric categories in collegiate esports. All of these figures will be coming from the 4th Volume of the Trends In Collegiate Esports Report as that is the broadest and most complete look at statistics in collegiate esports to date. Some disclaimers and acknowledgements before I start:

1. Participation in the Trends Report is entirely voluntary for every director and staff member who participates in it.
2. The report does not effectively survey club programs who are run by student leadership. It primarily looks at varsity programs (those with university staff at the helm) and extrapolates from there.
3. The survey cannot possibly hit on every single program in the industry, so some of the extrapolated data has a certain percentage of error built into it (namely the financial data).
4. When looking for DEI statistics beyond collegiate esports you may run into other versions of the acronym such as DEIB (the B is belonging), EDI, DIBE, and others. If looking for data, try mixing up the acronyms you’re using to find new studies.
5. While I was not a primary author of the Trends Report for the most recent volume as in past years, I was an editor and contributor nonetheless. While this may bias me in some way, data will be presented directly to avoid bias wherever possible.

Now, on to some stats, starting with what I think is the most important one to open with, qualitative and quantitative representation metrics:

As a quick side note, separating the non-binary category from the LGBTQIA+ category is disingenuous and serves as a way to “other” and separate non-binary people from the group. However, in actuality, the non-binary identifier is included in the transgender community.??

Comparisons to the previous Trends Report (data can be seen in my 2023-24 paper) can be difficult with these metrics as the way data was measured and reported was changed. Whereas in the previous iteration the percentage of schools with at least one person from each category was reported, this year’s report looks at what quantity of each category is present in a program and gives qualitative data. This is a more holistic way of approaching things and I wholeheartedly agree with this change, despite making comparison more difficult in retrospect.?

We can see that, for a majority of these categories, there is a heavy right skew and certain populations make up less than 10% of a program on average. While it is entirely unreasonable to expect that every program be equally diverse and produce a perfect bell curve in the yearly report, this does still show how there is room for improvement as many programs see a largely homogenous program population, sometimes more homogenous than the campus population as a whole. One notable statistic I want to point out that has seen some great improvement in recent years is the quantity of female and female-identifying students in esports programs. From both anecdotal experience and statistical overviews of major competitions in collegiate esports, more programs have women in their competitive teams and more programs have women in student and staff leadership positions. Strides like this come from purposeful efforts at inclusion and open representation that allows programs to show women that there are more people like them in the program. In the end, representation means a great deal in going towards inclusion and it is the first step of many in diversifying a program. While there is still room to grow, there is solid progress to be found.

Looking at more data presented, the number of LGBTQIA+ students in esports is also increasing, both at the amateur/professional level as well as in collegiate (Postell et al., n.d.). This directly follows the generational trends of an increasing number of Generation-Z members are queer, as seen in the data below:

While the exact percentage varies a bit based on survey method and organization, the decision to include those below 18 years old or not, and a few other minor influences, the overwhelming majority of evidence shows that Generation-Z (commonly defined as people born between 1997-2012) is increasingly queer and now make up an overwhelming majority of those who are students in higher education (given the simple linear progression of time). Given that roughly 22% of all Generation-Z members are queer, it would follow that the percentages of students in an esports program (see the Trends Report figure) generally fall between 0-40% of a program. I am happy to see the data in the Trends Report generally falling in line with the LGBTQIA+ metrics for those in GenZ and I believe that we are reaching a natural point of inclusion that would align with the world too.?

While a few other statistics line up with national averages for higher education (seen in the first figure below) and esports programs, like international students, students with disabilities, and first generation, the number of female students in collegiate esports is far below the national average of college attendance despite the aforementioned progress in this aspect (seen in the second figure below).?

Looking at national statistics, which are a touch old as they are from 2021 but generally accurate for the sake of discussion, we see that women make up roughly 55% of college enrollment. However, in collegiate esports, that number is right skewed and centered around the 10-20% group, a far cry from where it could stand. We can once again go back to the Trends Report to see a more detailed breakdown of where women stand in collegiate esports:

This stark contrast between the national statistics for college enrollment and the surveyed results for collegiate esports programs can be attributed to a variety of factors, but without more detailed study it is hard to pin down a dominant factor. Many common complaints from women in collegiate esports that I have heard or observed include a cultural problem in esports where women feel unsafe and commonly are threatened, a cultural gap on a broader scale where gaming is commonly thought of as a thing for boys only, or the lack of ways to make friends online without people feeling like it’s predatory. Regardless, more and more we see women joining collegiate esports programs and events being created for marginalized gender communities in esports as a whole such as the Aurora Series, Esports U n Me, or GameChangers and Calling All Heroes in the professional scene. As more opportunities are created, more women will become involved in esports and hopefully that will trickle into the collegiate space as well.

Culture Wars

While statistical evidence shows positive growth and greater inclusion in esports that is approaching and aligning with national college enrollment statistics, numbers only provide one part of the picture. Anecdotal and observable evidence shows that diversity, equity, and inclusion still has a long way to go in collegiate esports. While some of these issues are beyond the scope of collegiate esports and expand to esports or culture as a whole, it is still our responsibility as members of the collegiate esports community to continue pressing forward, affecting what we can and serving as a model where possible.?

Overall, the theme of the struggles this year as we head into an incredibly contentious election year, a further splitting of collegiate esports between philosophies, and an ever dwindling number of students in higher education is culture wars. Students are caught in the middle between all of this, struggling with balancing the day-to-day responsibilities of being a college student and the attacks on their identities that are now pervasive.?

Further Marginalization

Identity politics have marred the political landscape for the entirety of this election cycle and, as we lead up to November, students have increasingly been under fire from new decisions by governing bodies. State laws around the country are closing DEI offices on campus, shuttering LGBTQIA+ resources, and legislating away any resources that could remain for already marginalized students at institutions where there are very few others like them (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2024). Discussions of racial bias are becoming barred, race and gender studies programs are being closed, and laws are targeting any group they can. Furthermore, states are starting to ban gender affirming care for anyone under 25, further targeting college students, and ban the ability to change your name and gender marker legally (see Texas who just enacted this as I was writing this paper, (Salhotra & The Texas Tribune, 2024)), and I have increasingly been reached out to by queer students in other programs who are looking to transfer solely because they no longer feel safe in the state where they go to school and it is heartbreaking to hear.

For a more pointed example, it is illegal for trangender students to use the bathroom of their identified gender in numerous states, causing more issues than it solves. In my recent travels to both Kentucky and Tennessee, I was forced to use the wrong restroom and was accosted by staff and event attendees who were unaware of these laws, leading to further issues and concerns than before and requiring me to educate others to avoid harassment. Anecdotal reports from outlets like the Chronicle of Higher Education talk about the struggles of being a transgender student in higher education, showcasing how students rights are being trampled due to an ongoing culture war in our society that bleeds into the everyday lives of students (Bellows & Taylor, 2024). For many students, a choice of college isn't just a factor of degree and cost, it’s also a measure of culture and safety. Furthermore, when we travel as a program or students travel for any events that would require it, those affected need to look up the anti-trans and anti-queer laws in these states before they go to simply find out what bathroom they are even allowed to use. I have personally needed to talk through these concerns with my queer students before we travel out of state and assure them of their safety, oftentimes needing to contact event organizers to also ensure the event is a safe place for them.?

When we talk about how there needs to be more civility in discussions and debates of political nature in our world, that is all well and good but civility does not supersede safety. How can someone hope to have a civil conversation when members of congress are openly advocating for the removal of their rights and the culture war is ramping up, leading to death threats against them? How can we allow this sort of language to permeate higher education and the laws that affect us? While we in esports cannot control the laws, we can still advocate for our students and create a safe space in our own program where these sorts of struggles and oppression are recognized and students feel safe to talk about them. These students did not choose for their identity to be politicized, so their discussion of their own rights and safety concerns should not be considered a political conversation and ruled off limits. Managing and encouraging civil conversation is difficult and I fully acknowledge how tough it can be, but understanding where to draw the line is imperative.

Election Year

As I have alluded to a few times, it’s an election year, and probably the most contentious and divided election year in recent memory. Between local, state, and federal elections, the rights and liberties of a great many people hang in the balance. While it is not my place to stand on a political soapbox in this paper, moderating political conversations will inevitably be a responsibility of many esports program staff members this year and we should be prepared for it. Beyond just reading up on general good practices and understanding how to draw the line between civil and uncivil conversation, I highly advise all programs contact and work with the office of civil engagement or related departments on campus (generally you’ll find election events fall under the Division of Student Affairs somehow) to learn and enact the university approved best practices on encouraging civil discourse during this election cycle.

I would like to remind everyone that a part of improving DEI and representation in our government and legislative processes starts with creating an active and informed voting population. While it may seem roundabout, it is imperative that we make space for our students to participate in the democratic process this school year. Whether it be attending campus held events like debate watch parties or voter registration drives or making purposeful note of election day for your students, it’s important that we make being an active and informed participant in our democratic process a key part of our non-competitive programming this year. Many universities will have planned content for this election cycle to encourage students to be informed, so once again contact the relevant office on your campus to ensure you can point students in the right direction. Esports programs notoriously run rigorous and demanding competitive and practice schedules, oftentimes running into the wee hours of the night, but I would encourage program staff to specifically block out time to encourage students to attend campus election events to help them be informed citizens.?

Stratification of Collegiate Esports Culture

Just as a culture war is being waged in the political realm across our country, esports has seen a culture war sprout up that further divides the industry. In collegiate esports we have increasingly seen a few different kinds of programs spring up: Competitive focus, Community focus, and Career focus, and rarely do these three traits all exist in the same program in a meaningful capacity. This has put the industry at odds with itself where some programs treat students as tools to achieve trophies whereas others see students as their primary audience to serve and pursue goals of.?

One symptom of this further divide, with competition-focused programs diving further into a mentality that puts winning above everything, is the prevalence of mercenary teams and players. These are players or teams who freely transfer between universities each semester or year, seeking championships and acclaim versus grades and degrees. While this is not something solely constrained to esports as we have seen the transfer portal take center stage in college athletics in recent years, it is still something we need to address as an industry before we are ever to consider ourselves a legitimized group. How can university administrators hope to have faith in the developmental aspects of a program and its integration as a part of a university if their entire roster plays musical chairs every semester to see where they end up? It defeats the purpose of being a program in higher education because rarely do your students complete their degree if they are consistently shuffling between schools.?

This drive for wins and pure focus on players measured by their competitive output is ultimately detrimental to collegiate esports and the players that inhabit it because it gives programs more excuses to treat their players poorly for underperforming instead of working with them to improve. This also gives programs a reason to further divide and segregate their program population by removing resources, coaching time, and opportunities from students who may not be on the highest tier of roster available, instead relegating them and removing any chance to improve. If a player truly isn't a fit for a school from a cultural, academic, or location perspective, I understand that. But benching a player after they underperform for maybe a month, removing their scholarship earning capability and withholding education for the sake of shiny new achievements, is abhorrent and the opposite of what higher education should be.?

I know this is partially to blame on the lack of free or affordable education in this country, gatekeeping the ability to pursue a better life by means of money, athletic ability, or the willingness to die in combat (in the case of the G.I. Bill route), this does not mean that esports should emulate this as well. We need to stop encouraging a culture of quick transfers, championship hunting, and poaching if we are to truly be equitable as a space because we need to stop treating students like tools and start treating them like people. Esports can, and should, do better than our athletics counterparts and it's appalling that many staff think that the way things are currently going is acceptable, let alone sustainable. It always hurts to see students feel like they are disposable, and I believe one of the biggest obstacles to fixing this is the entrenched nature that esports programs should value winning above everything else.?

Outside of this transfer prone nature, collegiate esports also still struggles to maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of administrators and the general public because we are complacent with the “bro culture”, poor behavior, lackluster attitudes that seem pervasive throughout. We are such a drama hungry space that oftentimes students are left to fend for themselves online due to some contrived controversy or players shit-talk their opponents on a regular basis, foregoing sportsmanship for the sake of impressions. The culture of esports is still very hostile to outsiders, whoever they determine those outsiders to be, and many people within the space are hell bent on keeping it to the exclusive “boys only” treehouse it has historically been.?

It is up to directors, staff, and program administration above them to set the cultural tones for the program. Culture and leadership come from the top and without a leader at the helm who makes it a core mission of theirs, a program’s culture will fall to the wayside. Not allowing bullying, establishing language and conduct standards, and modeling and enforcing these standards every day. Whether you know it or not, how you act and how you carry yourself is observed by all of your students on a daily basis, and if already marginalized students see how you wont stand up for them when they need it, what reason do they have to stay? While it is unfair to blame the composition of largely homogenous programs solely on staff attitude, it is definitely a contributing factor and many students have told me that they avoided xyz program because of how uncomfortable the staff or students made them feel. Once again, choice of university does not depend solely on degree and cost anymore, the people matter a great deal too. Additionally, with the ever dwindling number of students entering college in the coming years due to both a cultural shift and a reduced number of 18 year olds due to the 2008 recession and resulting birth-rate drop, esports programs are at a crossroads and need to plant their flag on what they believe in and how they carry themselves.?

Esports still has a startup culture problem (you can see my elaboration on this in my article “Startup Culture Shouldn’t Last Forever”) that runs throughout, and while strides have been made, there is still a long way to go to break out of the entrenched cultural issues we suffer from.?

Hopes for the Future

It’s very easy to see all of this and think that the prognosis for collegiate esports is that we are doomed to spiral towards death due to a variety of factors, that isn’t necessarily the truth. While there are still some notable negative outliers in the way they treat students, many programs have been getting better and better, seeing that they needed to change and improve if they were to continue. This change has been sparked at all levels by more people becoming advocates, pushing for positive changes that benefit not just themselves. Students are increasingly becoming advocates too, speaking up and helping programs of all shapes and sizes change and improve. This growth and improvement won’t happen overnight, but signs are there that things are improving.

Statistically, things have markedly improved in the last three years since I started writing these. While the broader culture outside esports is in significant turmoil, we are starting to see collegiate esports consistently present a more unified front, advocating for students and doing right by everyone involved. One example of this is the large increase in sportswashing in esports as of late with the Esports World Cup buying our morals and teams left and right with large sums of money. By and large though, collegiate esports and academia as a whole has been insulated from these sorts of things because we look at how these things will affect our students. One thing that everyone in academia is great at is standing up for students and protecting them from outside forces, and this is no exception.?

With more advocates, more engagement, and an increasingly diverse student population, I think collegiate esports is well on its way to being incredibly successful and welcoming in a more diverse group of players, but we need to get out of our own way first.?

TL;DR

Key Improvements the Past Year

• Greater diversity representation in almost every category.
• Some categories approach or match national statistics for college enrollment metrics.
• More programs have advocates as leaders.

Looming Challenges

• Further marginalization by the government and culture is hurting students who are already vulnerable.
• The election year will be almost universally contentious and likely bring out strong feelings in students.
• The attitudes and behavior of some programs is straying further from our educational mission and the value of students as people is being diminished.?

References

Bellows, K., & Taylor, A. (2024, August 2). What’s the State of Transgender College Students’ Rights? Here’s a Primer. What’s the State of Transgender College Students’ Rights? Here’s a Primer. https://www.chronicle.com/article/whats-the-state-of-transgender-college-students-rights-heres-a-primer

Chronicle of Higher Education. (2024, August 9). Tracking Higher Ed's Dismantling of DEI. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 22, 2024, from https://www.chronicle.com/article/tracking-higher-eds-dismantling-of-dei

Gallup. (2024, July 5). U.S. Americans who identify as LGBT by generation 2023. Statista. Retrieved August 22, 2024, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/719685/american-adults-who-identify-as-homosexual-bisexual-transgender-by-generation/

National Center for Education Statistics. (2021). Fast Facts: Enrollment (98). National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved August 22, 2024, from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98

Postell, C., Narayan, K., & Esports Foundry. (n.d.). Trends in Collegiate Esports - Year End Report. Esports Foundry. Retrieved August 22, 2024, from https://esportsfoundry.com/Trends-in-Collegiate-Esports.html

Public Religion Research Institute. (2024, January 22). PRRI's Gen Z survey. PRRI. Retrieved August 22, 2024, from https://www.prri.org/research/generation-zs-views-on-generational-change-and-the-challenges-and-opportunities-ahead-a-political-and-cultural-glimpse-into-americas-future/

Salhotra, P., & The Texas Tribune. (2024, August 21). Transgender Texans blocked from changing their sex on their driver’s license. Transgender Texans blocked from changing their sex on their driver’s license. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/08/21/transgender-texans-drivers-license-DPS/