While the saying “go woke, go broke” definitely applies to Oberlin College considering its infamous history, there are some silver linings for Oberlin; namely, the NCAA awarded the school last month with the “2023 Division III LGBTQ Athletics Department/Conference of the Year” award.
In their write-up as to why they chose Oberlin for the distinction, the NCAA specifically cited their stated commitment to DEI:
Diversity, equity and inclusion is at the forefront of Oberlin’s mission. The school’s expansive efforts supporting LGBTQ student-athletes and staff include required education, physical and financial resources, campus and community partnerships, and panel discussions.[…]Among Oberlin’s inclusion efforts are requiring staff and student-athletes to complete microaggression, pronoun and allyship trainings. The school has also hosted Pride-themed basketball games and 5K races to raise money for The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention efforts among LGBTQ youth. OneTeam trainings have been offered to anyone in the athletics department, as well. The school is mindful of pronouns for all staff and student-athletes, maintaining a master list with those details to use in any print or digital materials. Transgender athletes have also been brought to campus to speak to student-athletes and staff. In 2018, Oberlin dedicated a locker room to be an all-gender changing space for transgender student-athletes and community members. In 2023, Oberlin student-athletes started a Queer Student Athlete Group to create a safe space for queer athletes to feel heard, represented and appreciated.
Their athletic director, Natalie Winkelfoos, declared in her video acceptance speech that “This award comes with a great sense of pride.”
“It also comes with a great sense of responsibility,” she also said in the clip below. “We cannot become complacent. We must constantly commit ourselves to maintaining and improving inclusivity on our campus.”
Maggie Balderstone, an Oberlin basketball player, zeroed in on transgender issues as one area where she believed the college and its woke students excelled.
“We do the work to kind of deconstruct the ideas about what a trans athlete is, what a queer athlete is” Balderstone stated.
Watch:
The statements about “inclusivity” are rather interesting considering in September, Oberlin demoted their then-women’s lacrosse coach, Kim Russell, to what was essentially a desk job as an Employee Wellness Project Manager, all for the crime of publicly defending herself after stating she believed women’s sports shouldn’t be opened up to men who identify as women.
In the lead-up to that, Russell – a long-time coach at the high school and collegiate levels – was subjected to disciplinary hearings in front of administrators who she said “burned me at the stake” for her views on protecting women’s sports. In some of the recordings Russell took during those hearings, administrators like Winklefoos and some student-athletes complained that the “period talks” Russell would sometimes have with female athletes made some of the students, presumably transgender “women,” feel “a bit unsafe” and unwelcome:
In a statement she gave during a GOP Oversight Committee hearing in December 2023, Russell noted that she was actually a liberal who believed that people should be who and what they want to be but noted that the reality about biology and the physical differences between men and women can’t and shouldn’t be denied:
Though it was Oberlin who won an award, it’s Russell who stands out as the real winner here, having parted ways with the school in October 2023 and never looking back. She’s now a full-time advocate for saving women’s sports, standing alongside Riley Gaines and other prominent female sports figures who are unafraid to say “Enough is enough,” and who understand what the world will be like for future generations of women if the gender identity politics-obsessed left have their way.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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