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Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and the Dartmouth men’s basketball team.

Adam Gray/Getty Images; Rob Carr/Getty Images/Getty Images

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Adam Gray/Getty Images; Rob Carr/Getty Images/Getty Images

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and the Dartmouth men’s basketball team.

Adam Gray/Getty Images; Rob Carr/Getty Images/Getty Images

Following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last week, the city’s 39 year old mayor, Brandon Scott, a Black man, stepped out to address the crisis. Hours later, a tweet went viral calling Scott a “DEI Mayor.” To which Brittany and her guests, NPR’s Gene Demby and Alana Wise, say “wait what?” The three dig into the racism lurking under the surface of this kind of rhetoric.

Then, as March Madness reaches its final nail-biting stages, Brittany takes a look at the reality of “student-athletes.” What may feel like an accurate descriptor of these players is actually a legal classification that bars them from asking for worker’s compensation and other benefits – benefits usually given to employees. Brittany is joined by sports business reporter Amanda Christovich and Assistant Professor of Legal Studies in Business at Boise State University Sam Ehrlich. They discuss how the recent news of Dartmouth men’s basketball team unionizing opens up doors for broader conversations around how we value “work.”

This episode was produced by Barton Girdwood and Alexis Williams with additional support from Liam McBain and Corey Antonio Rose. It was edited by Jessica Placzek. We had engineering support from Gilly Moon, David Greenburg and Patrick Murray. Our fact checker was Barclay Walsh. Our executive producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sangweni.