Taking a knee a way to protest racial injustice
UNM student athletes have constitutional right to express views in nonviolent manner
A few weeks ago, several Lobo players kneeled during the national anthem to protest racial injustice in the United States at the football game between the University of New Mexico and the United States Air Force Academy. They did not target their protest at the military or the Air Force Academy. Unbeknownst to them, the anthem had been moved to half-time, and normally they would not have been on the field when it would have been played prior to the start of the game. Nevertheless, they have heard from many fans who strongly accused them of being disrespectful to the flag and anti-military. I support the student athletes.
To be clear, I do believe our national anthem deserves respect and should be respected. As a nation, we prefer that people stand when it is played, but we live in the most remarkable country in the world. No law compels anyone to stand, and any such law if enacted would violate our Constitution. Moreover, our Constitutional protections are so strong, the government may not prohibit people from disrespecting the national anthem. Freedom of speech is one of the core values that define us as Americans. The student athletes acted in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, who turned to taking the knee to protest in a way that also demonstrated respect for the anthem.
The incident is not a new one in sports. It is a contemporaneous social issue with a long provenance in sports and society. Many people remember the black gloved fist of John Carlos and Tommie Hines at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Some may recall that several prominent African American athletes like Kareem Abdul Jabbar refused to represent the United States in the games to protest racial injustice. Who can forget Muhammad Ali refusing to be inducted into the Army and the Supreme Court decision vindicating his exercise of his Constitutional rights? The UNM football players were following not just in their footsteps, but also in those of socially conscious African-American student athletes at UNM in the past. On the night before the student athletes kneeled, the UNM Black Alumni Association honored Donald Walton, a student activist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who organized a protest by Black student athletes at UNM to support Black football players at Wyoming who were dismissed from the team for protesting then-racist practices of Brigham Young University and the Mormon Church.
In taking the knee, the UNM student athletes have embraced nonviolent protest to achieve justice. The willingness of student athletes to act on their convictions and incur public censure from fans who disapprove of their protest is in line with the civil disobedience tenets of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. To those who find civil disobedience disrespectful, Dr. King asserted that civil disobedience is the highest form of respect for the law as its practitioners are willing to accept the consequences of that disobedience.
The UNM student athletes did not face arrest or imprisonment for their protest but they have had social opprobrium heaped upon them. Some have called for their termination of their scholarships and their dismissal from the team. Yet the student athletes did not break any laws. Their actions were quite lawful and guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of New Mexico. Moreover, the University of New Mexico, a state institution, is constrained by both constitutions from depriving the student athletes of their right to free speech. Universities are bastions of free speech, and student athletes are entitled to the protection of their rights by the university just like any other campus speaker.
I support their protest of racial injustice, but I have a more personal reason for supporting the student athletes. My father died when I was 10 years old. He is buried in a public cemetery next to a wall. Three visits over the years to his grave have resonated with me. On one occasion, I came across a grave marker for a 19-year-old AfricanAmerican soldier who was killed in Vietnam. Several years later after returning from another visit, I was looking at the pictures I took. For the first time I noticed what was on the other side of the wall. I was absolutely stunned. The cemetery was segregated, with the wall as the dividing line.
I visited again in 2013. Across the wall on the other side of the cemetery was a grave with a Confederate flag accompanying a tombstone. Such flags are not uncommon sights in the South, and I was indifferent at the sight. However, I had to hold back the tears as I remembered that on the Black side of the cemetery lay an African-American soldier who gave his life for the United States even though he was not afforded the same rights as his fellow White soldiers. I was thinking that on the other side of that wall was a grave for someone who may have benefitted from his sacrifice displaying a symbol that might as well have said that the soldier was no more than three fifths of a person. I believe the emotions I felt were as strong as what many people feel who are upset with the protests of Colin Kaepernick and the UNM student athletes. But if someone can plant a Confederate flag to commemorate the resting place of a friend or family member across a cemetery wall from the grave of the fallen war hero who gave his life to protect their First Amendment right to display that flag, then surely, surely, African American athletes can take a knee to protest racial injustice. In doing so, they honor his sacrifice.