(L-R): Ibtihaj Muhammad, Lonnae O’Neal, Kara Lawson appear on the panel with moderator Jemele Hill.
BALTIMORE – Tuesday, Oct. 18, on the campus of Morgan State University (MSU), ESPN’s The Undefeated teamed with the University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication to sponsor a symposium on The Impact of Negative Images on Black Women Athletes.
Moderated by Jemele Hill, co-host of ESPN2‘s popular weekday sports discussion program “His & Hers” and co-anchor of 6 p.m. ET SportsCenter (starting February 2017), the symposium unpeeled layers of overt and hidden messages of race, gender and at times, religion, that confront African-American women athletes.
The panelists were Ibtihaj Muhammad, 2016 Olympic bronze medalist in fencing and the first American to compete in a hijab at the Olympics; 2008 Olympics gold medalist in women’s basketball and ESPN basketball analyst Kara Lawson; and award-winning journalist Lonnae O’Neal, senior writer with The Undefeated.
The symposium marked the launch of the School of Global Journalism and Communication’s new Center for the Study of Race in Sports and Culture (CSRSC). The Undefeated is funding the first two studies by the Center on the images of black women athletes, and an exploration of the pipeline for head coaching jobs for African Americans in the NFL and NCAA Division 1 football.
Results from the CSRSC study will form the basis of an expository journalism series that will be published by The Undefeated.