College Athletes Are Using Their Leverage In The Age Of Social Justice

Top-level college athletes have yet to unionize, but they are increasingly finding ways to use their leverage in pursuit of social-justice aims. 

Whether it was football players at Oklahoma State publicly objecting after coach Mike Gundy was photographed wearing an OAN T-shirt or Mississippi state legislators voting to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag six days after Mississippi State running Kylin Hill tweeted he “won’t represent the state” until the flag was changed, the balance of power seems to be shifting daily. 

The latest showdown is taking place in Manhattan, Kan., where Kansas State football players, led by All-American kick returner and wide receiver Joshua Youngblood, have threatened to boycott all team activities in the wake of a fellow student’s tweet mocking the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. 

“Congratulations to George Floyd on being drug free for an entire month!” read the tweet in question. 

Jaden McNeil, the student who made the comment on his Twitter account, previously started a group called America First Students that has yet to earn a campus charter due to insufficient membership. 

In a statement released by Kansas State football players, the team objected to McNeil’s “disparaging, insensitive, and unsettling comments” and demanded the university “put a policy in place that allows a student to be dismissed for displaying openly racist, threatening or disrespectful actions toward a student or groups of students.” 

Voluntary team workouts had recently been suspended for two weeks after 14 Wildcats athletes out of 130 tested across all sports were found to be COVID-19 positive. Although football workouts were not scheduled to resume until mid-July, the players vowed not to “play, practice or meet until these demands are heard and actions taken.” 

University president Richard B. Myers issued a statement condemning “racism and statements that reflect it, whether stated on social media or elsewhere,” but it remained unclear whether McNeil would be disciplined or even expelled or whether his controversial comments would fall under protected speech as outlined by the First Amendment.

On June 23, Purdue University student Maxwell Lawrence was expelled for posting an objectionable TikTok video about protesters and making what were deemed racist comments in a group chat. After a Purdue spokesman initially told the student newspaper, The Exponent, that students would not be disciplined for statements on personal social media accounts “no matter how offensive or vile,” school president Mitch Daniels decided to expel Lawrence anyway.

“Incitement” and “fighting words” are listed as examples of unprotected speech under the First Amendment, although the latter concept has largely disappeared from Supreme Court rulings since the precedent was established in the 1942 case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. 

Daniels, according to a news release on the Purdue University website, found that Lawrence’s social media posts “appear plainly intended to incite others and therefore create a risk of public safety issues in the current environment.” 

While the Purdue episode didn’t spark a concerted effort on the part of its student-athletes, the summary ruling by the former Indiana governor could have wide-ranging implications across the nation’s campuses. The first test could take place at Kansas State.