Anti-DEI push has ‘struck fear’ among college officials

CHICAGO, IL – Ajhanai “AJ” Keaton is an associate sport management professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is a leading voice, speaking on the intersection of race, gender and sports who recently co-authored an article for a scholarly publication on Black female student-athletes’ identity at historically White colleges and universities. Among her research interests are race and gender marginalization and organizational behavior.

We met Dr. AJ a couple of years ago on social media and quickly added her to our ever-growing list of Black experts to contact when needed. Earlier this year she invited me to come to last month’s 2025 Black Student Athlete Summit at Chicago’s McCormick Center.

“She’s amazing,” said BSA Executive Director/Founder Dr. Leonard Moore on Keaton, the organization’s research and professionals liaison.

The professor and I sat and chatted for the first time in person. She recalled, “Ten years ago, I was a master’s student and they needed me to do registration.” Keaton quickly moved from checking in Black student athletes to speaking to them either in breakout sessions or on the main stage over the years.

This year, the 10^th BSA Summit, Keaton moderated a student-athlete panel titled, “Name, Image and Blackness” on the main stage.  

Recently on Threads, Keaton posted, “Brands are missing the mark when they overlook Black LGBTQ+ women.” NIL was an oft-discussed topic throughout the four day event.  

Her on-stage panel stressed the importance that Black student athletes be selective in signing NIL deals: “Even Black brands don’t necessarily want just any Black athlete,” stressed Keaton. “Being gifted and achieving athletic success does not automatically connect to NIL.”

Later she explained, “I’m particularly thinking of men’s basketball and football. But I think I’m really trying to debunk this idea that just because we have NIL that all the athletes are automatically getting NIL opportunities. There’s so many layers.”

Keaton is a former student athlete who played basketball at Colorado State (2013-2015), where she earned a degree in sociology. She later earned her master’s in higher education administration from the University of Texas at Austin (2017) and her doctorate in learning, leadership, and educational policy from the University of Connecticut (2020). She taught at Louisville (2022-24) and joined the UMass faculty last June.

Now she advocates for all Black players trying to navigate in today’s college sport landscape, especially NIL.  

“I think it went well,” said Keaton after the NIL panel. “I think the goal of what I was aiming for was really getting people to unpack the intersection of identity and what that looks like from a brand perspective.”

There were at least 1,000 Black student athletes from coast to coast in attendance, but Keaton and others feared that the numbers were a bit down, probably due to the barrage of anti-DEI executive orders that since January have struck fear among college officials. These schools in previous years would foot the expenses for as many as 15 Black players to attend. This year many schools were represented in single digits.

Minnesota, for example, did not send any Black athletes to this year’s Summit, unlike the past two years, said Associate AD Peyton Owens. Instead, a group of Black Gopher athletes will be attending an expenses-paid conference sometime this summer.

“I think with everything going on socio-politically… it really just reinvigorates you to put something on that is so unique and special,” continued Keaton. “They [the athletes] need this space.

“Unfortunately, the same topics that we were grappling with 10 years ago, five years ago, it still comes up [today],” she concluded. “Every generation, every scholar-athlete every year still needs what we’re talking about.”

Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.