NCAA StudentAthlete Bans on Social Media are Unconstitutional
NCAA Student-Athlete Bans on Social Media are Unconstitutional Ashley Botham
Social Media Bans Many NCAA student-athletes of various sports and institutions have reported that they are not allowed to use certain social media platforms, specifically the use of twitter. Football Team Bans: University of South Carolina Boise State University of Iowa University of Kansas Florida State University
Discrepancy in Treatment No public university has banned the general student body from using social media. If the general student body is not banned from social media, student-athletes should not be banned either. Schools and coaches wish to avoid the negative attention and embarrassment and they want their student-athletes to create a positive image of the school and team.
United States Supreme Court The United States Supreme Court has stated that a public educational institution cannot censor speech simply because it wishes to avoid “discomfort and unpleasantness. ” Lower courts have also repeatedly stated that a public university violates a student’s First Amendment speech protections when the university disciplines a student simply because it does not approve of the speech’s content.
Tinker v. Des Moines School District A group of students decided they would wear black armbands to school as a symbol of their opposition to the Vietnam War. School principle created a policy that any student found wearing a black armband would be suspended until they returned to school without the armband. The students were aware of the new policy, but still chose to wear the armbands and they were suspended after refusing to remove them. The Court held that the school’s policy violated the students’ free speech rights under the First Amendment.
Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser A student prepared a speech nominating his friend for an office in student government; his speech relied on sexual innuendo as entertainment. Teachers advised the student that his speech was inappropriate and advised him to not deliver his speech. The student ignored the teacher’s advice and delivered the speech to approximately 600 students and was then suspended from school. The Court ruled that because the student’s speech was inappropriate for the forum and not a political viewpoint, it was not protected speech.
Hazelwood Independent School District v. Kuhlmeier A school principal angered a group of students when he removed two student written articles from the school newspaper before it was published. One article told the story of a pregnant student and the other article offered a negative viewpoint of the father of another student. The Court stated that “[a] school must be able to set high standards for the student speech that is disseminated under its auspices, standards that may be higher than those demanded in the ‘real’ world and may refuse to disseminate student speech that does not meet those standards. ”
Morse v. Frederick School officials suspended a student after he displayed a banner at a school sponsored event that read “BONG Hi. TS 4 JESUS. ” School officials argued it was clearly a message meant to promote the use of illegal drugs and the student’s best argument was that it was meant to be ‘meaningless and funny. ’ The Court ruled the school did not violate the student’s rights because the banner displayed speech that was not protected by the First Amendment.
Money Talks College athletics is becoming increasingly commercialized and is worth billions of dollars. Therefore, school administrations have an incentive to support whatever policies the coaches deem important for success, because the success equals more notoriety, more ticket sales, more alumni donations, and more revenue. When that kind of money is on the line, some administrators are willing to turn a blind eye and support coaches in violating the legal rights of their student-athletes.
North Carolina Football: Marvin Austin In May 2010, Marvin Austin made a handful of late night tweets that seemed to indicate he was at LIV (a posh Miami nightclub) and was enjoying a bottle service. By July, the NCAA had interviewed Austin and other North Carolina football players about them receiving extra benefits from school boosters and sport agents, the NCAA found evidence of additional players receiving extra benefits and academic fraud. When the investigation was finally over, several football players lost substantial portions of their seasons, the head coach Butch Davis was fired, and the Athletic Director Dick Baddour resigned.
North Carolina Football: Marvin Austin If Austin’s tweets had never been seen by the NCAA it is safe to assume many of these violations would have gone unnoticed. This case was the first time the NCAA openly described a duty to monitor student-athlete’s social media accounts and deemed the university had failed to meet its duty. “In February through June 2010, the institution did not adequately and consistently monitor social networking activity that visibly illustrated potential amateurism violations within the football program. ”
Student-Athletes & Social Media There have not been any instances recorded where something a student-athlete has posted on their social media account caused any school protests, led to the cancellation of classes, or affected the school’s educational environment in any substantially noticeable ways. The student-athlete’s social media posts also have not violated any other person’s rights. Worst case scenarios for student-athletes who post dumb messages on their social media is a loss of athletic eligibility, which is a separate concern from their education because a student-athletes enrollment is unaffected by his or her continuation in collegiate sports.
Unconstitutional “The bans on social media by public universities are motivated by concerns over image control and interests in further success in a multi-billion dollar industry— concerns that are glossed over with rhetoric trumpeting the privilege of being a collegiate athlete. ” Under the Tinker substantial disruption test, these bans on social media are unconstitutional because coaches have not offered an example of a student-athlete causing a substantial disruption in the school environment through social media use.
Moving Forward Universities could combine minimal restrictions such as 24 hour bans before and after competition or only restricting student-athletes from discussing certain topics such as illegal activities or NCAA violations on their social media account with educational programs in hopes of helping the student-athletes to make good decisions about what they post. This would offer a narrowly tailored option allowing coaches and administrators to employ some reasonable measures of control with the interest of protecting their student-athletes First Amendment free speech rights.
My Opinion I believe student-athletes have the right to use social media, but they should be educated on how to use it by their coaches. Both season long bans and the narrowly tailored bans violate the free speech right of student-athletes, but I believe if coaches are going to have social media bans, they should really consider having a narrowly tailored ban. In the event a student-athlete’s social media post did substantially disrupt the educational experience of the university, I believe the coach and administration have every right to take away the student-athletes right to post freely on social media via the Tinker substantial disruption ruling by the Supreme Court.
Questions
- Slides: 16