Inequality and Athlete Activism: Past, Present, & Future
During this one day conference on April 17th, 2026, hosted at Washington University in St. Louis by the Sports & Society Program Initiative in American Culture Studies, students, faculty, and scholars from across the region discussed the past, present, and future of inequality in sport and athlete activism.
Commercialized spectator sports are a potent platform on which debates about race, gender, political ideology, and other urgent matters are contested in American life. Sporting Icons like Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, Meghan Rapinoe, Colin Kaepernick, Serena Williams, and LeBron James have all used the athletics spotlight to speak out against inequality and injustice.
Schedule for April 17th, 2026
Welcome & Opening Remarks from Noah Cohan (WashU) and Tim Huskey (WashU)
Session I
Annie Gilbert Coleman (Notre Dame) “Federal Government and Sport Culture in the Tetons”
Alfred Darnell (WashU) “Mountain Climbing: A Calling, a Sport, and a Pass Time”
Valeria Bautista Misakova (Notre Dame) “Buckle Up For the World’s Toughest Rodeo: How Cowboys and Queens Endured the AIDS/HIV crisis in the American South and West through Gay Rodeos”
Bryce Noe (WashU) “From “Daring Innovators” to “Wimps”: How the Hypermasculinity and Homophobia of Late 1980s Skateboard Culture Sissified Its Earliest Subdiscipline”
Awarding of the Levey Family Research Prize– Zander Ealy (WashU) “Reimagining the Harlem Globetrotters of the 50s and 60s: A Program Shedding Light on Forgotten Stars”
Session II
Albert Lopez (University of Illinois) “Staying Indian: Phil Ortega and the Los Angeles Dodgers before Fernandomania”
Ryan Murphy (Notre Dame) “Small Area Games: The Professionalization of American Youth Ice Hockey, 1948-2026”
Michael Sam Jr. (WashU) “The Pursuit of Excellence: How High School Coaches Challenge the (Mis)education of Black Male Athletes”
Travis Vogan (University of Iowa) “Blinding James Speed: Basketball, Medical Racism, and Justice in Iowa”
Screening: Black Champions: Curt Flood
Session III
Zack Bowersox (WashU) “Nonetheless a Slave: Professional Sports Strikes and Labor Unrest”
Noah Cohan (WashU) and Steve Gietschier (Independent Scholar), "Sports Studies Before Sports Studies: Chuck Korr, Jack Scott, Jackie Robinson and the Conference that Anticipated the Field”
Glenn Houlihan (University of Iowa) “Wrongs and Redress: Reevaluating Wyoming’s Black 14”
Tom Oates (University of Iowa) “How Solidarity Journalism Can Change Sports Coverage for the Better”
Keynote Lecture
Joseph Darda (Michigan State) “Athletic Revolutionaries: Jack Scott and the Jocks Who Brought the Left to the Locker Room”
Closing Remarks & Adjournment