FoxNews.com Executive Editor John Moody is none too pleased about the U.S. Olympic Committee’s commitment to diversity in this year’s Winter games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
In a take on FoxNews.com, Moody blasted the USOC, who praised the team’s diversity in this Washington Post story from earlier this week.
“Unless it’s changed overnight, the motto of the Olympics, since 1894, has been ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger.’ It appears the U.S. Olympic Committee would like to change that to ‘Darker, Gayer, Different.’ If your goal is to win medals, that won’t work,” Moody wrote of the team’s drive to increase representations for Asian, African-American and gay athletes.
The thrust of the take echoes a longtime conservative critique of affirmative action-type programs on the grounds that looking to create diversity inevitably comes at the expense of choosing the most qualified people.
Moody reached back into history, citing Jackie Robinson and Jeremy Lin as example of athletes who triumphed as a result of their own merit and didn’t take handouts in the name of “diversity.”
“If someone is denied a slot on a team because of prejudice, that’s one thing. Complaining that every team isn’t a rainbow of political correctness defeats the purpose of sports, which is competition,” wrote Moody. “At the Olympic level, not everyone is a winner. Not everyone gets a little plastic trophy to take home.”
Fox News took down the article on Friday and disavowed the piece in a statement.
“John Moody’s column does not reflect the views or values of FOX News and has been removed,” said a network spokesperson.