The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)

OWNERS COULD FACE POTENTIAL LAWSUIT »

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Jerry Jones may want to bench Dallas Cowboy players who don’t stand for the national anthem, but NFL owners could find themselves facing a First Amendment lawsuit if they punish football players or coaches for their protests after taking government money into the private business of profession­al football.

The NFL is a private business and the First Amendment only protects Americans from free speech abuses from the government. But legal experts differ on whether pro teams who play in publicly-funded stadiums or who accepted government money in exchange for patriotic displays like the national anthem could find themselves legally exposed if they punish kneeling players.

The money exchanged between government­s and pro football teams could mean that discipline enforced by the team could be “fairly attributed to a government entity, meaning the employer could not discipline someone for taking a political position,” Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet said.

A judge could find it “relevant that some of the stadiums have been constructe­d with public support and may get continuing public subsidies,” Tushnet said. “It may be relevant that some of these practices were instituted in cooperatio­n with the national military.”

“If the government pays for the patriotic display and the firing is a result of the behavior being deemed insufficie­ntly patriotic, it is conceivabl­e that that a claim could then be articulate­d,” said Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment attorney in New York.

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