In 2020, Clemson University attempted to drop a bunch of sports, including men’s track and field. Minnesota did the same thing with four sports (including both indoor and outdoor track and field), and ended up dropping indoor only. Brown University also tried to drop its men’s track and field team, and then re-added… Etc. etc.

Enter my guests today. Russell Dinkins, a former 400 and 800m track athlete at Princeton University, has been credited with helping restore many of the men’s track and field programs that were on the chopping block, including Clemson. He happened to have some extra time during the early phases of the pandemic after getting laid off from his job at Mathematica Policy Research. He penned a piece on Medium called  “Brown University, If You Were Actually Serious About Racial Justice You Would Not Be Cutting the Men’s Track Team” that went viral. Russell spoke recently at the 2021 College Track and Field Convention about his successful argument-that dropping one of the most diverse teams on a PWI (primarily white institution) campus is the opposite of what colleges claim they stand for.

He’s joined by friend of the podcast Arthur Bryant, partner in the law firm Bailey Glasser, and a legal expert in all things Title IX. Arthur and Russell have worked together to advance the narrative around DEI and Title IX in college sports.