Copyright Hartford Courant
Former American Olympic track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who made world headlines after their iconic fist-raising protest on the podium after winning in the 1968 Olympics, will be at UConn on Wednesday as part of the 2025 Dodd Human Rights Summit. Smith and Carlos will be on campus in Storrs for the opening keynote conversation in the Student Union Theatre, moderated by ESPN’s William C. Rhoden. The conversation will launch a three-day summit examining the global and domestic issues at play in the intersection of human rights and sports. The summit – titled “Sport & Human Rights” – will bring together “prominent professional and collegiate athletes, thought leaders, policymakers, activists, scholars, students, artists, and business leaders from around the world to examine the promise of sport as a safe, inclusive, and equitable environment regardless of color, race, religion, ethnicity, tribal affiliation, socioeconomic status, gender, or sexual orientation,” according to a press release. “The summit will bring a new dimension of sport to UConn, one with a human rights lens,” Summit co-organizer and postdoctoral research associate Erica Laplante said. “By focusing the summit on the intersection of sport and human rights, we are able to leverage the strength of our human rights program with the strength of UConn’s athletic reputation to bring in new speakers, attendees, and community members.” “Sport promotes fairness, nondiscrimination, respect, and equal opportunities for all,” said James Waller, the Christopher J. Dodd Chair in Human Rights Practice and director of Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs at UConn. “On its worst days, however, sport can fail to uphold these standards. Instead of promoting and protecting human rights, sport can reveal serious violations of human rights – including racial and sexual discrimination, financial exploitation, and neglect and curtailment of participatory rights and freedom of expression.” On Thursday, Oct. 23, the summit will feature discussions on gender and resistance, with a keynote from Pablo Torre, host of “Pablo Torre Finds Out” and a former ESPN writer and on-air personality. The day will close with a panel on sportswashing, focusing on how states, corporations, and governing bodies use major sporting events to project power, shape narratives, and obscure human rights issues. The final day of the summit, Friday, Oct. 24, opens with a keynote from Paralympic ski racing medalist Danelle Umstead. A later panel will discuss the intersections of sports and corporate power. The summit will close with a discussion of sport and human rights close to home featuring UConn athletes, including former men’s basketball star Doron Sheffer ’96 (BGS); UConn’s interim director of student activities and former track and field standout Trisha Hawthorne-Noble ’11 (CLAS) ’18 MSW; Bethany Hart Gerry ’00 (CAHNR), Olympian and UConn All-American; former UConn football quarterback Bryant Shirreffs ’17 (BUS) ’18 MS; and Harrison Brooks Fitch Jr. ’64 (CLAS), son of the late Harrison Fitch, UConn’s first Black basketball player.
