Why Lane Kiffin is receiving criticism for ‘lack of diversity’ comments about Ole Miss originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The noise has quieted down since Lane Kiffin was the talk of college football in November, as he pondered a move from playoff-bound Ole Miss to LSU.
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After wrestling with the decision, Kiffin decided to join the Tigers, promoting Ole Miss to bar him from coaching in the College Football Playoff.
In the days and weeks that followed, reports detailed the kind of exorbitant money and resources that helped convince Kiffin he could seriously compete for a national championship in Baton Rouge. Now, Kiffin is claiming there was even more to his decision than just that.
Here’s what Kiffin had to say about Ole Miss and why his comments are receiving backlash.
MORE:Lane Kiffin’s contract details at LSU
Why did Lane Kiffin leave Ole Miss for LSU?
Kiffin is making more money at LSU, but he cited the overall resources of the program as the biggest reason he left Ole Miss.
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“They all said, man, you are going to regret it if you don’t take the shot and you don’t go to LSU,” Kiffin said of his conversations with mentors. “It’s the best job in America with the best resources and to win it. It’s obviously been done here before by a number of people.”
In a new Vanity Fair feature, Kiffin sung a bit of a different tune, citing a lack of diversity as an impediment to recruiting at Ole Miss.
“When he was coaching there, Kiffin says, top recruits would tell him, ‘Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.’ That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Kiffin told Vanity Fair. “Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’s diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.’”
Kiffin insisted to Vanity Fair that he didn’t intend to disparage Ole Miss. “There are some things that I’m saying that are factual, they’re not shots,” he said. Some were quick to criticize Kiffin, though. Here’s why.
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MORE:Complete winners, losers from Lane Kiffin’s move to LSU
Ole Miss vs. LSU diversity stats
Ole Miss only desegregated in the early 1960s, but LSU says it also didn’t start admitting Black students until 1964. While the “Rebels” moniker can easily be tied to the confederacy, LSU’s “Tigers” nickname actually has its origins in the confederate army. Some believe the “Ole Miss” name also has ties to slavery, though the its origins are disputed.
Kiffin’s assessment of the two cities is accurate. Baton Rouge was 53.6 percent Black as of the 2020 census, while Oxford was 22.4 percent Black. Oxford still has a considerably higher Black population, proportionally, than the United States as a whole, as the 2020 census found that 12.1 percent of Americans were Black.
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From a state perspective, the facts point in the other direction, as 37.6 percent of Mississippians are Black, according to the 2020 census, while 32.6 percent of Louisianans are Black. Mississippi has the highest Black population, proportionally, of any state in the country.
To Kiffin’s credit, much of Louisiana’s Black population is in the major metro areas of Baton Rouge and New Orleans while Mississippi’s Black population is generally more rural. For a student-athlete stepping onto campus in Oxford or Baton Rouge, that could mean something.
According to 247 Sports, LSU has landed 50 five-star recruits this century compared to 20 for Ole Miss. The Rebels’ five highest-rated recruits signed with the program before Kiffin’s tenure, though some of those recruitments under Hugh Freeze were scrutinized.
Of course, LSU has a prestige and championship that Ole Miss doesn’t, along with more resources. How much of the Tigers’ recruiting success has to do with diversity is unclear, but many cast doubt on Kiffin’s assessment.
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MORE:Why Lane Kiffin didn’t coach Ole Miss in playoff
Ole Miss history with confederate flags
Until 2015, Ole Miss’ campus flew the Mississippi state flag, which featured the Confederate battle flag in the upper left corner. The school decided in 2015 to take down the flag, which remained Mississippi’s state flag until being discontinued in 2020.
Mississippi adopted a new state flag in 2021. While the old Mississippi state flag was taken down on campus before Kiffin was hired by Ole Miss, the state didn’t adopt a new flag until after Kiffin’s first season with the Rebels.
Louisiana was part of the Confederacy but hasn’t ever used the Confederate emblem on its state flag.
