The head coach of Oberlin College’s lacrosse team says she was called “transphobic” and “unsafe,” and investigated by the woke college after questioning transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male, winning last year in the NCAA. “It is scientific that, biologically, males and females are different,” the lacrosse coach added. “I don’t believe biological males should be in women’s locker rooms. Where is the MeToo movement now? What happened to that?”
“I was blown away that a male was allowed to compete with women in NCAA swimming,” Oberlin College lacrosse coach Kim Russell said in an eight-minute video documentary shared by the Independent Women’s Forum.
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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
“When Lia Thomas won, I reposted a post that said, ‘Congratulations to Emma Weyant, the real woman who won the NCAA 500-yard freestyle event.’ One of my own players took that post and sent it in an email to my athletic director,” Russell explained.
Oberlin College Women’s Lacrosse Coach Kim Russell
School administrators responded to the complaint by calling Russell into their offices for a series of disciplinary meetings, and the lacrosse coach recorded each one.
In one instance, Natalie Winkelfoos, Associate VP for Athletics, can be heard telling Russell, “Unfortunately, you fall into a category of people that are kind of filled with hate in the world.”
“It’s acceptable to have your own opinions, but when they go against, you know, Oberlin College’s beliefs, it’s a problem, for your employment,” Creg Jantz, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, told Russell in another instance.
Russell said school administrators later demanded that she write a letter of apology to the team, and to the Department of Athletics.
“I hope you feel remorse for it,” Winkelfoos said in another audio recording.
The lacrosse coach said she began to write her apology letter, but then stopped herself from doing so.
“I’m not writing a letter of apology, I’m not sorry,” Russell said in the documentary. “I really believe that women should be competing against other biological females.”
Russell, who has been coaching for 27 years, said she was then told that she had to attend a meeting with her entire team, the athletic director, the Title IX director for the Athletics Department, the head of the department’s Diversity, equity, and inclusion (D.E.I.) office, and the Title IX and director of D.E.I. for the entire college.
“There was a very dark energy,” Russell explained of the meeting. “Chairs were set up in a huge circle, I felt like I was burned at the stake.”
“It was, what I would call the ‘mob mentality,’ where a few people on the team spoke about how much they were upset with what I had posted, and how dare I post that,” the coach said. “I love these kids, and to have many of them say all these things that, to me, were attacking who I was as a person, it made me sad.”
The documentary also featured several audio clips of student lacrosse players lecturing Russell.
“Everyone has their views,” one student said. “But what the focus should be here isn’t what the view is, it should be the impact that that caused, the impact that that post had,” one student could be heard preaching in an audio clip.
“I still feel like we’re just kind of, like, justifying your actions a little, instead of, like, a true apology,” another student lectured. “Especially at Oberlin, where there is such a high, like, LGBTQ+ population, I just feel like I would like a little more accountability.”
“It’s not good enough just to work for, like, women’s issues or white feminism, you know? It has to, like, your feminism, has to be inclusive for everybody,” another said.
During the meeting, Russell felt that nobody was really listening to what she had to say. After that, when the season was finished, Russell was called in for yet another meeting, where she was given a letter that informed her she had damaged her credibility and would need to change her behavior immediately.
“I believe that there are so many people who are afraid of losing their jobs that they are just going to do what they have to do to keep working,” Russell said in the documentary. “It is my job to be a voice for everyone who is too afraid, who needs to keep their job.”
“It is scientific that, biologically, males and females are different,” the lacrosse coach added. “I don’t believe biological males should be in women’s locker rooms. Where is the MeToo movement now? What happened to that?”
“Do I believe I’m at risk of being fired, of having a storm hit me?” Russell said. “Yes. Am I ready for the storm? Yes.”
Russell is not the first person Oberlin College has attacked.
As Breitbart News previously reported, the leftist school had to pay $36.59 million in court-ordered defamation damages to a mom-and-pop bakery it slandered as racist — after previously fighting desperately to avoid paying the judgment.
In 2019, Meredith Raimondo, now an ex-dean, had orchestrated a woke mob into slandering the family that runs Gibson’s Bakery as racists for calling the police on three black students for allegedly shoplifting a bottle of wine.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.