Speaker: Jaylen Brown, guard/forward, Boston Celtics, National Basketball Association (NBA)

Moderator: Jal Mehta, associate professor of education, HGSE

Who is Jaylen Brown? He taught himself Spanish – and is currently learning Arabic; he plays chess and the piano; and he comments eloquently on politics, education, and the impact of racism in America. Oh, and he’s a professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics. Surprised?

Jaylen Brown has experienced the “too smart” for basketball stigma since his youth. Being an athlete and an intellectual seems so incongruent in our society – particularly for young men and women of color. But athletes are much more than masters of their sports – they’re investors and entrepreneurs, philosophers, philanthropists, hobbyists, and multi-dimensional individuals shaped by their experiences growing up, learning, and playing sports in our society.

Based on his personal experiences coming of age in Marietta, Georgia, as an up-and-coming basketball star in college at University of California, Berkeley, and in his two years with the Celtics, Brown will discuss institutionalized sport and education, inequality by design, the role sports play in society, and why he thinks athletes can, and should, be ready to use their celebrity and prominence to speak up and advocate for change.

In conjunction with the Office of Student Affairs and the Alumni of Color Conference (AOCC).