So by now we have all pretty much heard what is going on at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). If not let me give a very brief summary. **Updates after the timeline summary**
September 12: Missouri Students Association president posts about a racial slur directed at him by an individual.
October 5: Legion of Black Collegians are allegedly target of racial slurs by a man on campus.
October 8: Mizzou Chancellor Loftin announces mandatory online diversity training for faculty, staff and students. Jonathan Butler, MU graduate student and campus activist said the training “was a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.”
October 10: Members of “Concerned Student 1950” protest during the MU Homecoming Parade and blocked Mizzou President Tim Wolfe’s car saying he was not doing enough.
October 21: Concerned Student 1950 issues a statement of demands which included an apology from Wolfe and his removal from office.
November 2: A Mizzou student announces that he will go on a hunger strike until Wolfe is removed from office.
**Update: It seems that everything that happened on the Missouri campus may have actually been a hoax. Please read this report from FoxSports “Is the Entire Mizzou Protest Based on Lies”
This still does not change the actions taken by the football players and rest of the article still applies. End Update**
And now let’s cut to the heart of the issue…
November 7: Black Mizzou football players say they will “no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experiences“. This was posted in a Tweet from the Legion of Black Collegians account.
November 8: Nearly 100 players and assistant coaches (black and white) agree to support the boycott imposed by the players.
No one questions their right to be upset. No one questions their right to protest. College students have made an art of protesting for decades. But the type of protest, the boycott by players is where we have a big problem.
What the college players, the NCAA Student-Athletes, did by threatening to not participate in football games or any football related activities is violate their contract with the school and the NCAA. Many, if not most of these athletes are under scholarship. When they refuse to honor their contractual obligation to the school and the NCAA they violate their agreement and could very easily have their scholarships revoked.
By allowing the students to refuse to play football and violate their contract, MU is complicit in helping them break the law. MU has now allowed the players at their college to dictate the terms, discipline and employment at the university. Even though Missouri is paying the scholarships for many of these players through athletic and/or academic monies they have let them get out of control with their demands and as a result they have set a very dangerous precedent.
This opens the doors to many similar copycat protests. What is going to stop players in other colleges from simply saying, “We’re not going to play our sport and honor our contract until we get what we want”? Nothing. What is going to stop players from threatening to cost the school millions of dollars in sports TV revenue by boycotting a specific game in order to hamstring the school into meeting their demands? Nothing.
The University of Missouri should have nipped this player boycott in the bud from the offset. They should have suspended all of the players who violated their contract with the school and the NCAA and made them an example to any other players who try to, for lack of a better word, strike.
Sure that would have probably opened the door to some legal action, but there is a contract and precedent in support of the University’s position.
Back on August 15, 2015 the National Labor Relations Board announced that it would not uphold the 2014 ruling that Northwestern’s football players are employees of their university. They stated,
Even if the scholarship players were statutory employees (which, again, is an issue we do not decide), it would not effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction.
Because of the nature of sports leagues (namely the control exercised by the leagues over the individual teams) and the composition and structure of FBS football (in which the overwhelming majority of competitors are public colleges and universities over which the Board cannot assert jurisdiction), it would not promote stability in labor relations to assert jurisdiction.
That means that football players and college athletes cannot form a union. As a result they do not have the right to strike. However, the Missouri football players were given freedom to do so. That causes a litany of problems that the NCAA will now have to face well into the future until they make an example out of one of the teams or groups of players.
I reiterate, students have every right to protest, but football players and student-athletes hold a different covenant with the school than a normal student. They not only have a contract with the school, the NCAA and the football program…they have an unwritten contract with the fans, boosters and those who support the team. By simply deciding to boycott they not only cost the university and team money, they cost people jobs. Groundskeepers, concession workers, custodians, ticket handlers, event staff, all of these people and more stood to lose salaries that they sorely needed because of this overzealous boycott.
The bottom line is the football players cannot use their position on the team as a bartering tool so they can get their own way. That is unprofessional, illegal and beneath the character of an NCAA student-athlete.
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