Maher hits NFL ‘anthem’

Bill Maher has slammed the NFL’s decision to play “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — known as the black national anthem — before kickoff at the season’s first game last week, calling it “segregation . . . under a different name.”

The host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” railed against the NFL after Alicia Keys performed the song ahead of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the opening game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday.

“Now maybe we should get rid of our national anthem, but I think we should have one national anthem,” Maher said on Friday’s show. “I think when you go down a road where you’re having two different national anthems, colleges sometimes now have . . . different graduation ceremonies for black and white, separate dorms — this is what I mean.

“Segregation. You’ve inverted the idea. We’re going back to that under a different name,” he said.

Maher made the comments in a wider discussion about race, during which he also argued that the American education system had become a “social-justice factory.”

The comedian made reference to critical race theory being taught in schools, as well as a number of teachers who have publicly resigned because of it.

“When people say to me sometimes, like, ‘Boy, you really go after the left these days. Why?’ Because you’re embarrassing me,” Maher said.