Alabama Football Players Flood Women's Studies Courses (but it's not for the reason you think)

Three years ago, when the ASA published its study of grade inflation, no one wanted to listen -- least of all the administration.

But it turns out someone else was listening: football players.

At the University of Alabama, about half the players are on academic "warning," and so the question becomes, how to boost their grade point averages so that they maintain eligibility.

It turns out to be pretty simple. First, you get them to major in Home Economics, now known as "Human Environmental Sciences." Then you get them to take a lot of fluff courses only they, the football players, can take. Step three is to take Women's Studies 101. Why?

The reason, as we showed three years ago, is that the average grade in that course is an A, and the majority of A's awarded are in fact A+. What a way to bump your average!

Now, do football players in fact receive As. No. They usually get Bs and Cs and Ds. But that's OK. They pass. And meantime, the Department of Women's Studies gets to claim that it is not full of Vagina Monologue-quoting feminists, but possesses some diversity in its student ranks. And to top that, the WS faculty can also claim that do, in fact, give out something other than all As.

It's what you call a win-win situation, for the so-called student athletes and the WS department.