Cori Schumacher

Cori Schumacher is an American world champion surfer, activist and former politician.

Early life

Schumacher was born April 23, 1977, in Huntington Beach, California. Both her parents were avid surfers. The family moved to San Diego where Schumacher learned the practice.

Surfing

Schumacher has won multiple national and international surfing titles. She surfed as the #1 US female shortboarder on the 1994 and 1996 US Team for the International Surfing Association (ISA). Her most notable international shortboard title was the winner of the 1995 Pan-American Championships. But Schumacher is best known through her efforts in women's longboarding. She is a three-time Women's World Longboard Champion (2000, 2001, 2010), Women's Longboard Pipeline Pro Champion (2009) and two-time Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) North American Champion (2008, 2009). From late 2001 to 2008, Schumacher went on sabbatical from competition. She returned in 2008 to win the Linda Benson Roxy Jam at Cardiff, California. After winning her third world title in 2010, Schumacher took a stand against the first professional surfing championship to be hosted by China, writing in an email to ASP administrators, “I have deep political and personal reservations with being a part of any sort of benefit to a country that actively engages in human-rights violations, specifically those in violation of women.” Schumacher boycotted the world surfing tour.

Schumacher came out as gay.

Activism and political career

After boycotting the world surfing tour in 2011, Schumacher directed her focus to social justice work on gender equity and increasing LGBTQ+ and BIPOC representation in surfing. In 2013, she launched a viral online campaign demanding Roxy surf wear stop the sexualization of female professional surfers in their advertisements. The advertisement in question was made by Roxy as the main media for a world championship tour surfing contest in Biarritz, France—an event governed by the Association of Surfing Professionals, who up until the global push back had permitted contest sponsors to control media for professional surfing events.

In 2017, Schumacher published a chapter in the Critical Surf Studies Reader, a seminal anthology introducing the emerging academic field of critical surf studies. Her research focused on the gender pay gap, misogyny, and homophobia within the world of professional surfing.

In 2019, Schumacher worked with California Assembly member Tasha Boerner-Horvath on Assembly Bill 467, California's "Equal Pay for Equal Play" legislation which emerged from conversations between the two. Schumacher testified in support of the bill and organized support for the legislation from professional surfers, skateboarders, and champion cyclists. The bill was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2019 and went into effect January 1, 2020.

Politics

From 2016 to 2021, Schumacher served as an elected official in Carlsbad, California.

In 2016, Schumacher was elected to the Carlsbad City Council as an at-large council member. She received support from the Carlsbad community after her work opposing a contentious mall development plan that the community ultimately rejected in a special election in February 2016. Schumacher was the first LGBTQ+ elected official in Carlsbad's history.

In 2018, Schumacher announced her campaign for Mayor of Carlsbad. However, she lost the election to incumbent mayor Matt Hall. Her platform centered on creating a community choice energy program for Carlsbad.

In 2020, Schumacher was elected to Carlsbad's District 1 seat directly before California went into lockdown due to the rapid spread of COVID-19. She became the target of increasingly hostile attacks after initiating a special meeting on January 5, 2021, to address Carlsbad's District 1 having become "ground zero" for restaurants defying California restrictions on indoor dining during the peak of COVID's impacts.

In 2021 Schumacher faced a recall. According to the The San Diego Tribune, critics launched the recall effort in part due her to filing restraining orders against three Carlsbad residents which a judge dismissed. In July, Schumacher announced her resignation from the Carlsbad City Council to pursue her education.

Since June 2023, Schumacher has served as the political director for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 569.

Personal life

Schumacher married Maria De Jesus Cerda in 2008. Schumacher uses they/them and she/her pronouns.

References

External links

Waves of Disruption: The Cori Schumacher Story (Video)Speaking Truth to Power (Podcast)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schumacher, Cori
American surfers
Living people
1977 births
World Surf League surfers
Sportspeople from Huntington Beach, California
Sportspeople from San Diego
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians
American LGBT city council members
California city council members
Women city councillors in California
American LGBT sportspeople
Lesbian sportswomen
21st-century American LGBT people
American female surfers