An Oberlin College lacrosse coach says she was harangued, reprimanded and pressured to recant by school officials for sharing an Instagram post expressing opposition to male-born athletes who identify as women competing in female sports.
Kim Russell, the Oberlin head women’s lacrosse coach, said she was called into a series of disciplinary meetings after one of her players brought her March 2022 post to the attention of the administration at the small liberal arts college in Ohio.
The message that Russell reposted said: “Congratulations to Emma Weyant, the real woman who won the NCAA 500-yard freestyle event,” referring to the swimmer who placed second to transgender athlete Lia Thomas at the 2022 NCAA Division I women’s swimming championships.
“I was called in for a meeting to the athletic director’s office with the athletic director and assistant AD saying, ‘What were you thinking? Why would you do that?’” Russell said in a short documentary released Tuesday by the Independent Women’s Forum.
“I immediately felt like a little kid being yelled at and told I was wrong,” said Russell, who is entering her sixth season as Oberlin’s head coach. “People saying, ‘A transwoman is a woman. How can you not think that?’”
Russell, who made audio recordings of the meetings, said she was later called in and told she needed to write a letter of apology to the athletic department and the women’s lacrosse team, but she refused.
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“I started to write one and then thought, ‘No, I’m not writing a letter of apology. I’m not sorry,’” Russell said. “I will have a conversation with anyone who wants to have a conversation about this. I’m passionate about this. I really believe that women should be competing against other biological females.”
BREAKING: Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach at Oberlin College is breaking her silence in an @IWF documentary after being “burned at the stake” for her support of single-sex sports & speaking out against allowing men in women’s sports. https://t.co/n1MPhiM4D5 pic.twitter.com/WgD57sAYxR
— Independent Women’s Forum (@IWF) August 29, 2023
Polls show most U.S. voters oppose allowing male-born athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports based on gender identity, and yet Russell said she was told by Oberlin administrators that her views were beyond the pale.
In one of the recordings, a woman identified as Athletic Director Natalie Winkelfoos tells Russell: “Unfortunately, you fall into a category of people that are filled with hate in the world.”
Russell said “she also told me I was being called transgressive, transphobic and unsafe, and that just broke my heart because you love these kids like they’re your own.”
The Washington Times has reached out to Oberlin for comment.
The coach said the blowback culminated in a meeting with the entire women’s lacrosse team, the athletic director, the Title IX director, and the department’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion director, as well as the Title IX and DEI director for the entire college.
Russell said she recalled that the room was “dark,” and that the chairs were set up “in a huge circle.”
The meeting lasted nearly two hours. Even though “I had prepared myself emotionally because I knew what was coming,” she said, “I felt like I was burned at the stake. I felt like I was stoned and hanged all at the same time.”
“It was what I would call the mob mentality where a few people on the team spoke with how much they were upset with what I posted, and how dare I post that,” she said. “The meeting turned into anybody being able to say anything they didn’t like about my coaching style, or my assistant’s coaching, anything.”
At one point, a woman identified as a student says: “It’s not good enough just to work for, like, women’s issues or White feminism, you know. Your feminism has to be inclusive of everybody and work for everybody.”
Russell’s battle with the Oberlin administration comes with international athletic associations increasingly moving to restrict transgender participation in women’s sports amid a pitched debate over fairness versus inclusion.
“What Oberlin College subjected Kim Russell to for simply believing biological truths was nothing short of a modern, Maoist struggle session,” said Andrea Mew, storytelling coordinator at IWF and producer of the documentary.
That reference was to the notorious denunciation rallies in Maoist China in which accused “class enemies” were publicly humiliated and attacked, often by friends and family.
Russell said administrators placed a letter of reprimand in her personnel file, but she was not fired. She finished the 2022-23 lacrosse season, although she said it was “the most difficult season I’ve coached, by far.”
“I sent them my response: If I am breaking university policy, please tell me what that is. Please do that in writing, and if you’re going to fire me for breaking university policy, please do it now,” she said. “Every day I went into the office I felt like I was walking on eggshells. I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Russell, 56, played Division I women’s lacrosse at the College of William & Mary, where she earned all-region and all-conference honors. She previously coached at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, and Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio.
“I’ve had the opportunity because of the women that came before me to play at the highest level,” she said. “There have already been athletes who have had awards taken away, opportunities taken away from them, opportunities to compete at a certain level, because someone else got it who’s a biological male.”
Oberlin’s transgender inclusion policy allows male-to-female transgender athletes to participate on women’s teams after one year of testosterone suppression.
“It is scientific that biologically, males and females are different, period,” Russell said. “I don’t believe biological males should be in women’s locker rooms. Where’s the #MeToo movement now? What happened to that?”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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