{"id":363811,"date":"2018-06-02T16:44:50","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T15:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-the-nfl-players-union-can-block-the-leagues-new-ban-on-protests\/"},"modified":"2018-06-02T16:44:50","modified_gmt":"2018-06-02T15:44:50","slug":"how-the-nfl-players-union-can-block-the-leagues-new-ban-on-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-the-nfl-players-union-can-block-the-leagues-new-ban-on-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"How the NFL Players’ Union Can Block the League’s New Ban on Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On August 26, 2016, then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the National Anthem, triggering a national debate around First Amendment rights of speech and issues of\u00a0<\/span>racial injustice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The very next day, the National Football League (NFL) and the 49ers issued\u00a0<\/span>separate statements\u00a0<\/span><\/a>about the incident, and NFL Players Association (NFLPA) executive director DeMaurice Smith did an\u00a0<\/span>in-depth interview\u00a0<\/span><\/a>with\u00a0<\/span>The<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>Nation<\/em>\u2019s sports editor Dave Zirin.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayers are encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the National Anthem,\u201d the NFL said, echoing existing policy in the NFL\u00a0<\/span>game operations manual.\u00a0<\/span><\/a>The 49ers emphasized that \u201crespecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose to participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s interview responses generally supported freedom of expression and unequivocally backed Kaepernick. \u201cThere is never going to be a day where this union is going to sit back idly and allow anybody to trample our players\u2019 rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

More than a year later, President Donald Trump launched a scathing\u00a0<\/span>attack\u00a0<\/span><\/a>on protesting players and demanded they be fired. The NFL and the union\u00a0<\/span>responded immediately\u00a0<\/span><\/a>in the players\u2019 defense. Trump continued to denounce the protests for weeks and called on football fans to\u00a0<\/span>boycott\u00a0<\/span><\/a>games. Dallas Cowboys team owner Jerry Jones threatened to bench protesting players after\u00a0<\/span>consulting with Trump.<\/a><\/p>\n

The controversy spurred the NFLPA\u2019s October 9\u00a0<\/span>statement on player\u2019s constitutional rights<\/a>. Two days later, the league and the union issued a\u00a0<\/span>joint statement<\/a>\u00a0confirming that there was no change in policy around protests. On October 17, a much publicized meeting of the NFL and NFLPA resulted in an\u00a0<\/span>agreement\u00a0<\/span><\/a>\u201cto review and discuss plans to utilize our platform to promote equality and effectuate positive change.\u201d No player…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 26, 2016, then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the National Anthem, triggering a national debate around First Amendment rights of speech and issues of\u00a0racial injustice. The very next day, the National Football League (NFL) and the 49ers issued\u00a0separate statements\u00a0about the incident, and NFL Players Association (NFLPA) executive director DeMaurice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-363811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}