The many fashion choices of the Oregon Ducks…and children are starving in Appalachia.

On his excellent ethics blog, the Ethics Sage, a.k.a. Dr. Steven Mintz, recently expressed dismay at the increasing trend in college and high school football teams that has them changing uniform designs for no discernible reason, but at significant expense. Focusing on the multiple uniforms used over a season by the Oregon Ducks, he wrote:

“The poverty line threshold in the U.S. ($23,050 for a family of four) is, on a daily basis, about $16 per person per day. If my estimates are close, the cost to outfit the Duck football players for a year is about $48,000, double the poverty level for a family of four and enough to sustain 3,000 people for one day or about 8 people for one year. When you think about the extravagant spending on uniforms by the Ducks, you begin to understand that it reflects a society where glitz and glamor are valued over feeding the hungry — not a pretty picture”

I am not sure what to make of this argument. Is Mintz arguing that the Ducks are ethically obligated to send the money they spend on extravagant uniform diversity to the poor? Isn’t this really just the old “How dare you waste those perfectly good peas when children are starving in Ethiopia?” argument? Realistically , there is no way the university’s football uniform budget is going to be able to help feed the poor. Why pick on the Ducks? He goes on to write, Continue reading →