NEW YORK — Muriel “Beth” Hopkins, a pioneering Black student at Wake Forest University and winner of the school’s distinguished alumni award this year, will be honored on Thursday as one of 17 USTA Champions of Equality at the US Open.
Hopkins was selected by USTA Southern, the largest of the USTA sections, according to a news release.
On the 50th anniversary of equal prize money at the 2023 US Open, the United States Tennis Association is set to host the Inaugural Champions of Equality Event. The event pays tribute to female leaders from all 17 USTA sections who exemplify the spirit of a Champion of Equality through their unwavering dedication and commitment to advancing the cause.
“It is a huge honor to receive an award for a concern which has been part of every facet of my life,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins has “demonstrated great strength, courage and grace in dealing with inequality, and as such, has materially changed the organizations that once treated her unequally, which is a testament to Beth’s true character,” said USTA Southern president and CEO Brett Schwartz said.
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A resident of Winston-Salem, Hopkins began volunteering for the USTA by serving as a member of the constitution and rules committee for USTA North Carolina. She also served on the board of directors for both USTA North Carolina and USTA Southern. She was elected as USTA Southern vice president in 2021. Also, Hopkins acted as a board liaison for the diversity, equity and inclusion committee. She previously served as chairman of the USTA constitution and rules committee.
Hopkins, who was the school’s first Black homecoming queen and one of only two Black females living on the campus, earned her bachelor’s degree in East Asian History in 1973 from Wake Forest and a jurisprudence degree from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law in 1978 after she was initially denied admission to the Wake law school because it told her the school already had two Black students.
At Wake Forest, Hopkins served in the legal department including of counsel. She also worked in positions in the Department of History, American Ethnic Studies and Professor of Practice in the Department of History and in the School of Law. During this period, she also took on the role of Director of Outreach in the School of Law. Hopkins was instrumental in developing courses and initiating and overseeing the Pro Bono and Public Initiative Programs within the School of Law.
Her legal career included working as Virginia’s Assistant Attorney General and Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1978-84.
Hopkins’ love of tennis grew from a class at Wake Forest. She also remembers wanting to play in her hometown but running into obstacles that were common for that time.
“The environment in which I grew up in the 1960s in Petersburg, Virginia, was not hospitable to tennis players who looked like me,” she said. “In fact, we might have been arrested had we played on public courts in the part of town in which we did not live.”
Hopkins said she is determined to make tennis more inclusive.
“My son played No. 1 on the tennis team at Wake Forest University,” Hopkins said, “and I see it as my mission to bring as many players of all stripes into this grand sport.”