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More Than Leisure and Play: Race and Gender Politics in American Sport

Sun, October 3, 2:00 to 3:30pm PDT (2:00 to 3:30pm PDT), TBA

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

There is an oft-repeated notion that sports are a realm for leisure and play, not for serious politics. By consequence, limited political science scholarship attends to the politics of sport. However, given the increased visibility of athlete activists, pressing questions of amateurism and equity in college athletics, the involvement of professional and amateur athletes in the Black Lives Matter movement, and ongoing legal battles over regulating access to “women’s” sports teams for transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming athletes, defending this apolitical perspective is increasingly difficult.

This panel illustrates the point by analyzing the political entanglements of recent protests and policy debate emerging within and through the realm of sport. It brings together in conversation scholars of American gender and racial politics, public opinion, and campaigns/elections to underscore the politics of the purportedly apolitical. The politics of sport analyzed by the panelists are situated squarely within some of the most pressing justice issues of our time. Who is allowed freedom of speech and on what terms? What are the political meanings of sex and gender categories? What are the impacts of uprisings for racial justice? How can movement leaders influence opinion and perspective on issues of justice? What is the future of gender and racial equity issues in higher education? Leading scholars of race and ethnic politics, the politics of sex and gender, and the study of American politics shed light on the path forward for this urgently understudied realm for political science.

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