Updated.
If the past is any indicator, public schools are about to have a big teachable moment about the First Amendment, sparked by a burst of tension between President Donald Trump and professional athletes.
When former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started kneeling on the sidelines during the national anthem in 2016, high school athletes around the country were inspired to join him. And, as his protest spreads in a highly visible way, it鈥檚 likely that more young people will want to take part.
NFL players, professional athletes in other sports, and even Stevie Wonder joined in Kaepernick鈥檚 protest over the weekend, motivated in part by President Donald Trump鈥檚 call for team owners to fire and otherwise silence players who committed the act of protest.
The actions of so many people who are major influences on young people will almost certainly spread once again to high school sports and classrooms. So here鈥檚 an important reminder: Courts have held that schools cannot compel students to participate in patriotic rituals like standing for the national anthem or saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
And, as I wrote when Kaepernick鈥檚 protest鈥攎otivated by a concern about police treatment of black Americans鈥攆irst spread into classrooms, First Amendment advocates and education groups say punishing students for such peaceful acts of protests is not only a violation of their rights; it鈥檚 also a wasted learning opportunity.
鈥淐ourts have affirmed and reaffirmed that students do not check at the schoolhouse gate, and speech cannot be curtailed unless it creates a material disruption to the educational process,鈥� National Association of Secondary School Principals Executive Director JoAnn Bartoletti said in a statement. 鈥淵et in this debate, something greater is at stake than individual student rights. Prohibiting student protest challenges the very purpose of school as a place of learning.鈥�
Renewed attention to athletes鈥� protests
The call for NFL players to kneel spread quickly over the weekend following a Friday night Trump speech.
鈥淲ouldn鈥檛 you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 鈥楪et that son of a b**** off the field right now. Out! He鈥檚 fired. He鈥檚 fired!鈥欌�� the president said while campaigning for Republican Senator Luther Strange in Alabama.
After Golden State Warriors player Steph Curry said Friday he would rather not accept an invitation to go to the White House, a tradition for NBA championship teams, Trump uninvited him on Twitter Saturday. Curry cited Trump鈥檚 rhetoric and policies, which he said had failed to unite the country at a divisive time in its history.
Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Some鈥攊ncluding many in conservative media鈥攁gree with Trump, saying that it鈥檚 inappropriate for players to make political statements and that it鈥檚 disrespectful to military members to kneel during the anthem.
Players and their supporters said they felt it was necessary to use their voices to draw attention to an issue that concerns them. Their protests were a call to uphold the values the anthem represents, they said, and not intended as an act of disrespect.
And some athletes who hadn鈥檛 participated in the initial protests said they felt compelled to join because of the pressure the president鈥檚 words have put on black athletes to silence their voices. On Saturday night, Oakland A鈥檚 catcher Bruce Maxwell became the first Major League Baseball player to kneel during the anthem. The protests trended on Twitter all weekend under the hashtag
Can high school athletes kneel during the national anthem?
Whatever educators鈥� personal views on current protests, courts have ruled in the past that schools can鈥檛 force students into acts of patriotism.
In the 1943 case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a school would violate the free speech rights of its student, a Jehovah鈥檚 Witness, if it forced him to say the Pledge of Allegiance.
鈥淭o believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds,鈥� Justice Robert Jackson wrote in his majority opinion.
69传媒 can鈥檛 require students to observe patriotic rituals in the classroom, and their authority to discipline them for such acts diminishes even more at an athletic event, where behavior like shirtless cheering is 鈥渁 regular occurrence,鈥� Frank LoMonte, the former executive director of the Student Press Law Center, told me last year.
And school鈥檚 authority to discipline students for silent anthem protests isn鈥檛 heightened if those students are taking part in a privilege, like being members of a football team, he said. Courts have held that public institutions can鈥檛 withhold privileges, like employment at a public agency, if employees exercise free-speech rights, like refusing to recite an anti-communist pledge, he said, arguing that the precedent applies to student athletes.
鈥淵ou can鈥檛 condition a privilege on forsaking your constitutional right any more than you can condition a right or a benefit,鈥� LoMonte said.
This issue isn鈥檛 always clear to educators. Kaepernick鈥檚 initial protests were met with forceful public statements by some educational administrators last year. A Native American high school student in California said recently a teacher had docked her class participation grade after she In September, a black student in Illinois said his teacher
What can students learn from #TakeTheKnee?
Here are some classroom conversations that could be sparked by this weekend鈥檚 events.
The motivation for the protests could be a jumping off point for writing assignments and discussions about race and policing in America. 69传媒 could read statements by the athletes themselves about why they choose to kneel. Do they agree or disagree? Would they take such a step if they were in such a high profile position? Why or why not?
There鈥檚 also an abundance of writing about race and policing, including materials assembled under the hashtag this summer. To personalize the issue, students may want to examine the role of police in schools and policy debates over the disproportionate discipline of black students, which Education Week detailed in our Policing America鈥檚 69传媒 series earlier this year.
The protests would also be a great jumping off point for lessons about the First Amendment. As Stephen Sawchuk wrote recently on the findings of a poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center: 鈥淣ot even half of Americans could 鈥楩reedom of speech鈥� clocked in at 48 percent, but the right to peaceably assemble came in at just 10 percent, freedom of religion at 15 percent, freedom of the press at 14 percent, and the right to petition the government at 3 percent.鈥� The Newseum has a whole page of
More specifically the players鈥� protests are a great lens for discussions about the nature of protest and public influence. Protests are, by their nature, a disruption of norms that are meant to provoke attention. What is the value of that? Why is it effective?
As the Washington Post noted last year, many of the past protests that we now laud as landmark events in our history were Worth pondering for students: Is lunch counter sit-in of the civil rights era the same or different from the actions athletes are taking today? Why or why not? How are the athletes鈥� the same or different from other recent protests related to causes all along the ideological spectrum?
Have any ideas for resources or discussions? What have you seen about how schools are addressing student protests? Please share in the comments.
Photo: Several New England Patriots players kneel during the national anthem before an NFL football game against the Houston Texans on Sept. 24 in Foxborough, Mass.--Michael Dwyer AP