Lakers Hire UCLA Professor Karida Brown As Inaugural Director Of Racial Equity And Action
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — The Los Angeles Lakers have hired Dr. Karida Brown, an assistant professor of African American Studies and Sociology at UCLA, to be the team's inaugural director of racial equity and action.
"Dr. Brown will create a curriculum to help the Lakers staff enrich their knowledge on today's most urgent topics, as well as helping to identify ways the team can be more active and efficient in creating change," according to a Thursday statement from the franchise.
Brown has a master's and a doctorate in sociology from Brown University and a master's in government administration from the University of Pennsylvania. She also serves on the boards of The Obama Presidency Oral History Project and the Du Boisian Scholar Network.
"We are very happy to have Dr. Brown join the team," Tim Harris, the Lakers' chief operations officer and president of business operations. "She will play a key role in implementing educational programming on race and racism for our employees and helping us focus on racial equity in our day-to-day functions, as well as empowering the organization to identify ways to be more active participants in affecting real change."
Brown is also a Fulbright Scholar whose work has been supported by national foundations such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Hellman Fellows Fund. She is the author of two books — "Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia" and "The Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line" — and is working on a third book, Separate and Unequal," which focuses on the history of racially segregated education systems and the ongoing impact on racial inequality in present-day education.