Cheerleaders Find Out That It’s a Bad Idea to Kneel for the National Anthem
Apparently, when you’re not an entitled millionaire athlete who has the power of the media behind you, kneeling for the national anthem actually doesn’t go so swimmingly. A group of cheerleaders from Kennesaw State University in Georgia learned this lesson the hard way.
According to WXIA-TV, several of the cheerleaders from the metro Atlanta school decided to assume the now-too-familiar kneeling position out on the field while Francis Scott Key’s greatest hit was played during a Sept. 30 game against North Greenville University.
When the Kennesaw State Owls next took to the gridiron on Oct. 7 to play Texas Southern, the cheerleaders were nowhere to be seen during “The Star-Spangled Banner.” That’s because the administration decided they’d be kept off the field to prevent further anthem-related posturing.
A statement on the decision from the university’s athletics department was a master class in downplaying the controversy, failing to even mention it once.
“The decision…. is part of a number of changes that have been made by a new Athletics administration each game as we continue to refine and enhance the gameday atmosphere for our fans,” the statement read.
“Some of those other changes have included painting the KS logo at midfield for the first time, the addition of metal detectors at gates to expedite fan entry, and music/PA system changes to have more loud speakers by the student section.”
Yeah, because I’m sure the media was breathlessly awaiting the latest music/PA system data. Clear the wire, fellas — I’ve got to send out a flash about the expedited fan entry at future Owls games!
However, the brother of one of the kneeling cheerleaders was willing to speak to WXIA about the situation. He used the paradoxical excuse we’ve heard so much these past few weeks: She was only disrespecting our country’s national anthem because she really loves the country!
“Her and another group of the girls really felt moved to join the movement of talking about racial inequality and criminal justice reform,” Davante Lewis said, “and decided that they wanted to take a knee.”
Lewis says that keeping the cheerleaders off of the field “represents a type of government coercion and a violation, I think, of government interacting against people’s free speech.”
“We really want Kennesaw to reaffirm its higher education institution as a place of free expression and free beliefs.”
This argument actually holds slightly more water here than when it’s used by NFL anthem protesters. Kennesaw State is a public school, which means that the First Amendment right of free expression is extended to those on campus (a fact that must certainly come as a surprise to the suzerains of Berkeley).
That said, it still doesn’t hold a whole lot of dihydrogen monoxide; there is no guaranteed constitutional right to be on a football field — or in any other campus facility, for that matter — at a specific point in time.
If you’re an Ohio State student, for instance, you have every right to hold up a sign that says “Jill Stein 4 Prez!” on campus. You do not, however, have the right to climb over the stadium railing and run onto the football field with said sign during the fourth quarter of the Michigan game. When the campus police invariably chase you down and get you in a headlock, the Constitution ain’t going to help you out.
Unless favor is being shown to one political group at the expense of another — for instance, allowing a liberal speaker while cancelling a conservative one over “security reasons” — a public college or university has every right to restrict access to certain places to certain people. The cheer squad isn’t a political group. In fact, judging by the video, the majority of the cheerleaders chose to remain standing, so it’s not as if their opinions were somehow monolithic. Nice try, though.
What we ended up with, instead, is an object lesson in how people are a lot less tolerant of disrespecting the anthem, the flag, and those who have served it when the people who are doing it aren’t famous or rich.
It’s a lesson the NFL would do well to take note of — politicizing sports doesn’t pay off.
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