For years, Kim Russell was highly regarded as the women’s lacrosse coach at Oberlin College in Ohio. Her career took a sudden turn last year when she went on social media to speak out against men competing in women’s sports. She congratulated a swimmer named Emma Weyant as the real winner of the 500 meter freestyle competition at the NCAA championships after the title was given to Lia Thomas. That turned out to be the beginning of the end of her coaching career, though the process was long, drawn out, and painful. National Review has all of the awful details.

The former Oberlin College women’s lacrosse coach, who was recently demoted after speaking out against the inclusion of men in women’s sports, now says the campus environment has become so hostile that she no longer feels comfortable showing up to work.

On March 20, 2022, Kim Russell reposted a story on Instagram congratulating Emma Weyant as “the real woman winner of the 500 freestyle” at the NCAA swimming championship after male competitor Lia Thomas took the title.

At the top of the post, Russell left comments: “What do you believe? I can’t be quiet on this…I’ve spent my life playing sports, starting & coaching sports programs for girls & women..”

You can click through for the full details, but Kim Russell went through something you would expect to see in a Chinese Communist Party reeducation camp. She was contacted by the college’s athletic director, Natalie Winkelfoos, who also turned out to be the director of Title IX at Oberlin and a DEI liaison. (So you can see how neutral she would be.) Russell was forced to apologize and sit through lengthy pile-on sessions where students accused her of all manner of hateful things which she was forced to repeat back.

She was put through multiple disciplinary hearings and meetings, being told that she was in a category of people who are “filled with hate.” Even after all of that, she was told she would have to write two additional letters of apology to the team and to the entire athletic department. She had finally reached her breaking point and realized that she could not write a letter of apology “when I’m not sorry.”

She finished coaching for the rest of the season and took off for the summer. When she returned in August, she was berated and reprimanded yet again. Russell finally went public with her story and received a demotion after 27 years of coaching as a reward. She recently stopped showing up at the school, though she refuses to quit. She expects to be fired presently.

And all of this happened because of a post on social media. There weren’t even any trans players on the lacrosse team. (Though I’m sure they’ll be coming along soon.) But like so many before her, she has consistently said that she doesn’t care how anyone dresses or what they call themselves. She’s just someone who lived through the era in women’s sports before Title IX was fully implemented and girls were only able to play on co-ed teams or against the boys if they were even allowed. As she says, Title IX was created to give girls and women a space where they could compete against each other, not so boys could compete against girls. All of this is apparently still going on at Oberlin, so if you’re considering sending your child there, particularly if she’s a girl (a real girl), you might want to keep this in mind.