Penn basketball players stood up (or sat down) for free speech

Over the past few years, college sports have generated any number of tabloid-worthy scandals: steroid abuse, sexual assault, faked grades and more. But sports can also inspire us to fulfill our highest ideals, especially at times when they seem to be on the wane.

I’m thinking about the basketball teams at the University of Pennsylvania – where I teach – and at nearby Villanova, ralling around our most beleaguered principle of all: freedom of speech.

Several players at both institutions have chosen to protest during the national anthem, while other players have continued to stand for it.

“We had each man explain individually why he’s standing for the national anthem, and why they’re not standing,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “The beauty of our country is that everyone is willing to make their own decisions.”

That’s the beauty of college, too, at least in theory. Open up any university brochure, and you’ll see glowing testaments to “personal growth” and “critical thinking.” College is where you find your real self, we proclaim, by testing your ideas against others.

But if you talk to students, you’ll find something else: They’re scared, so they bite their tongues.

In a survey of over 37,000 undergraduates conducted this year by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, more than 80% reported self-censoring at least part of the time. And only 40% said they felt comfortable disagreeing with a professor in class.

One student at Penn said they did not share their objections during a class discussion about defunding the police, for fear of “being judged/criticized” or “deeply offending someone.” Another was afraid to raise concerns in an orientation for new students that included “instructions” about words to avoid because of potentially racist connotations.

Got that? When people get here, we instruct them about what is permissible speech and what isn’t. And they don’t feel they have the permission to speak up about those instructions, or anything else that might be controversial.

That’s why the news from the college basketball world comes as such a pleasant surprise. All but three of the Penn players – alongside two assistant coaches – have elected to sit during the national anthem, as a protest against ongoing racial injustices in the United States. But head coach Steve Donahue is standing for the anthem, and – most important – for his players’ right to disagree with him.

“We’ve talked hours and hours, maybe a hundred hours during the pandemic, about the issue,” Donahue said. “My thought is, they deserve the freedom of expression. They do it respectfully. I think it’s a personal decision.”

At Villanova, where half of the players have been leaving the court during the anthem, Wright likewise emphasized tolerance for different points of view.

But witness the burst of social media vitriol among conservatives calling on Penn and Villanova to discipline the protesting basketball players. Aren’t these the same people who rail against “cancel culture” at our universities? And now they want to cancel the protesters?

Meanwhile, liberals who praise the protesters for exerting their free speech rights often ignore or even endorse the many other restrictions on them: speech codes, anonymous bias-reporting systems and much else. If you support freedom for the players, you need to support it for everyone. Full stop.

I’m proud of the basketball players for standing up – or sitting down – for their beliefs. Most of all, I’m proud of their coaches for defending their right to do so. That’s a lesson we could all stand to learn, over and over again, until we know it by heart.