NFL Needs a Thoughtful Response to National Anthem Protests

It was my job to make teenagers stand for the Pledge of Allegiance for nearly 20 years.

I am a former public high school teacher. New Jersey state law requires students to stand for the pledge if they are physically capable of standing. Technically, students must also place their hands over their breasts and recite the pledge as well, but practicality dictated that they at least stand in respectful silence. Exceptions who had “conscientious scruples against such Pledge” were rare. 

When the Rodney King verdicts were announced, everyone still had to stand for the pledge. The morning after Columbine: Stand for the Pledge. The Wednesday morning after 9/11: Stand. After the O.J. verdict, after the 2000 election: Stand and stand. The day after two seniors from my school died in a car accident? Put aside your grief and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Black kids, white kids, Christian kids, Jewish kids, Muslim kids, rich kids, poor kids, angry kids, popular kids, nonconformists in black trench coats, kids bound for the Ivy League and kids wearing court-mandated ankle bracelets: They were all expected to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance every morning no matter what was happening in the world.

I often sympathized with the students who did not wish to stand. But there was a law to uphold, safety and order to preserve, and the rights and feelings of 25 people to protect. One student is angry about police brutality, another’s father is a cop. One wants to protest the war, the other has a brother in Afghanistan. For 30 seconds, none of that was allowed to matter.

And, of course, teachers are not legally allowed to grab teenagers by their collars and lift them from their desks even if they are so inclined. Enforcing the rule wasn’t as easy as barking an order.

So I have a small sense of what the NFL is about to go through in the wake of Colin Kaepernick’s seated protest during the national anthem last Friday night. No, adult athletes are not teenagers and should not be treated as such, and the NFL is not a public school with pledge laws on the books. But getting everyone to do the same thing, while at the same time respecting individual rights and enforcing necessary boundaries, takes a great deal of finesse. And we all know that the NFL is not good at finesse.

“I’ll continue to sit. I’m gonna… stand with the people”: Colin Kaepernick sits in protest https://t.co/jKBgCgLrwD https://t.co/nurCVkGc8e

— CNN (@CNN) August 29, 2016

The NFL needs a plan and policy for dealing with future protests, whether by Kaepernick, players who agree with Kaepernick, players who vehemently disagree with Kaepernick or any other politically or socially sensitive issue moving forward. Breaking news: We are entering a tense, contentious political period. Kaepernick plans to keep protesting—in military-friendly San Diego in a few days—and it’s naive to think that no other players will join him or engage in other demonstrations.

It’s difficult to chart a proper course of action for the NFL when modern political discourse only allows us to have one of two opinions on Kaepernick:

OPINION A: If these ignorant, entitled athletes don’t want to earn millions playing a children’s game thanks to the sacrifices of the brave men and women of the armed forces, they should be banned from the league and deported.

OPINION B: All forms of self-expression are equally wonderful, and anyone who is insulted or outraged by Kaepernick is obviously either a howling racist or lacks the enlightenment and self-actualization to move beyond symbolic gestures of outmoded ideas like patriotism, the way me and my friends at the organic co-op have.

Your opinion is probably more nuanced than either of those. Still, everyone who disagrees with you will likely just lump you into one of those two camps. But the NFL, with a constituency of thousands of players and employees—plus responsibilities to the community that come from being a high-profile employer and civic presence—can’t afford this kind of binary thinking.

Unfortunately, the NFL only has two default responses when a major societal problem is about to become a major football problem:

RESPONSE A: Cram head deeply into sand, wait for problem to become an all-consuming crisis.

RESPONSE B: Issue heavy-handed orders, impinge on basic rights and freedoms, and thereby contribute to problem becoming an all-consuming crisis.

Response B lines up roughly with Opinion A. There are fans who would be happy to see Roger Goodell issue six-game suspensions for anyone who remains seated during the anthem. The NFL does not plan to do this—the league issued a statement encouraging but not requiring players to stand—and almost certainly doesn’t have the right to do this, no matter how broadly it interprets the “conduct detrimental” clause in the collective bargaining agreement. It’s also a horrendous idea, but that never stops the NFL.

Opinion B lines up roughly with Response A and probably sounds more enlightened and compassionate. Let a million flowers grow, Moonchild. But the NFL is responsible for the safety of tens of thousands of spectators. We already have Kaepernick jersey-burners. It’s not far-fetched to imagine brawls erupting, on the field and off, if the national anthem becomes a forum for a dozen different political statements from all over the spectrum.

Niners fan burns Colin Kaepernick jersey while playing the national anthem. VIDEO: https://t.co/zOiGgYl4rw pic.twitter.com/gdIY1xh9WC

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 29, 2016

We like to forget that the NFL is a for-profit business when we hop on the righteousness soapbox. The league has responsibilities to sponsors and corporate partners. Players are employees, the field a workplace. Games cannot become be-ins. The NFL can’t lapse into its …

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