In a blow to women’s rights and free speech, administrators at Oberlin College in Ohio removed Kim Russell from her position as women’s lacrosse coach last fall, after she spoke out against competition in sports by transgender men who identify as women.
In March 2022 Russell shared a friend’s Instagram post saying, “Congratulations to Emma Weyant, the real woman who won the NCAA 500-yard freestyle event.” Weyant had finished second to Lia Thomas, a man who identifies as a woman, at the 2022 swimming championship.
“What do you believe? I can’t be quiet on this,” Russell added to the post. “I’ve spent my life playing sports, starting & coaching sports programs for girls & women.”
A student reported Russell’s comments to college authorities. Oberlin’s athletic director then demanded Russell write a letter of apology to the lacrosse team and the whole athletics department. When she refused, the director set up a meeting between Russell, the team and a “mediator.”
“I was screamed at, all the while the AD, Natalie Winkelfoos, looked on silently,” Russell told phillylacrosse.com. A week later Russell was forced to attend another inquisition with the lacrosse team present and was grilled by three administrators for almost two hours. She was told to listen to her team members, repeat back what they said about her and not respond.
Winkelfoos, the associate vice president for athletics, told Russell, “Unfortunately, you fall into a category of people that are kind of filled with hate in the world.” She said some people on campus were calling her “transphobic” and “unsafe.”
Winkelfoos also berated Russell for bringing in another coach, a medical specialist, to talk with the athletes about the menstrual cycle. Winkelfoos claimed students consider that “an attack on trans because you have people on your team who hate their period.”
“It’s acceptable to have your own opinions, but when they go against Oberlin College’s beliefs, it’s a problem for your employment,” Creg Jantz, senior associate director of athletics, told Russell.
Russell had recorded the second meeting and used excerpts as part of a YouTube documentary she helped make, “Burned at the Stake: One NCAA Coach’s Battle to Protect Women’s Sports.” Shortly after it was posted in September 2023, the college removed Russell as head coach, assigning her to a desk job where she would have no contact with students. She quit Oct. 4. Russell had coached at the campus for six years.
“Oberlin — like many higher-level institutions these days — only seems to support the First Amendment if your values align with theirs,” Russell wrote in the New York Post Sept. 8. “Disagree, and you will be verbally and emotionally attacked, bullied, shunned and vilified. Perhaps even ultimately forced out.”
In “Burned at the Stake” she says, “It is scientific that, biologically, males and females are different. Period. I don’t believe biological males should be in women’s locker rooms.”
In December Russell testified before Congress alongside former NCAA swimmer and women’s rights activist Riley Gaines in support of Title IX, the 1972 civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational programs that receive federal assistance. Its passage came out of the movement for women’s rights in the late 1960s and early ’70s that opened the door to transforming women’s athletics.