Lapchick focuses on racism impact in his social-justice work

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) — The founder of the institute that examines diversity in sports is taking to Twitter to highlight weekly examples of racism in sports and elsewhere.

Richard Lapchick is the founder of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES), which was launched in 2002 at Central Florida. He said TIDES found 58 articles in their first week of searching and he highlighted 11 on his Twitter feed.

“I am doing this because I think most are not aware of the frequency of these divisive and destructive events,” Lapchick said.

The topics shared Monday include the World Cup, the NHL’s Boston Bruins and their handling of the Mitchell Miller signing, and college sports.

In November 2021, Lapchick — a leading voice on issues of equality in sports — stepped down as director of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program at UCF to devote more time to supporting social-justice issues.

The son of late college and NBA coach Joe Lapchick remained the director of TIDES, which annually produces report cards evaluating racial- and gender-hiring practices for professional sports leagues as well as college sports — most recently on the NFL.