Bill Russell has been advocating for racial equity for over a half-century, and shows no signs of letting up as he pushes for a national implementation of the so-called “Russell Rule”.
This new policy was recently adopted by the West Coast Conference in order to promote diversity in college athletic department hirings.
It’s designed to require the inclusion of minority candidates in the hiring process of any openings for every “athletic director, senior administrator, head coach, and full-time assistant coach position” that opens in the conference, according to the Boston Globe’s Bob Hohler.
“I hope the West Coast Conference initiative encourages other leagues and schools across the country to make similar commitments,” Russell said in a statement to the Globe. “We need these intentional measures if we’re going to make real change for people of color in leadership positions in college athletics.”
In a sport where where the male athletes are more than 55% Black and a level of play where all NCAA athletes are 36% minority, the fact that — as the Globe reports — only one Athletic Director in 10 and nine head coaches out of a hundred are Black at very best some kind of change is clearly needed.
WATCH: Jaylen Brown, Boston thank Celts icon Bill Russell for activism https://t.co/8VWvl8vvR1
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) September 3, 2020
In New England the situation is even worse, with only 4.5 Athletic Directors per 100 are Black. Russell’s involvement in the push to institute the rule named in his honor was sparked by WCC Commissioner Gloria Nevarez.
The WCC Commissioner reached out to the ex-Celtic after proposing the new policy measure to her conference in the wake of the killing of George Floyd as a potential structural intervention to fight institutional racism.
Let’s hope the policy change brings the much-needed change it intends in the WCC — and more importantly, catches on in collegiate academics more generally.
