Keep Tennessee’s knee off the First Amendment – Murfreesboro Post

Despite what one might think are far more pressing problems, in the past few weeks a number of Tennessee legislators have threatened to penalize state colleges and universities that permit athletes to take a knee during the playing of the national anthem prior to athletic events.

If ever there were a need for national unity, this might be the time, and there is certainly value in uniting behind common symbols.

At the start of the Revolutionary War, Americans united behind the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence. The following year Congress prescribed the design of the U.S. flag. During the War of 1812, Francis Scott Lee penned lyrics to accompany the flag, which Congress finally adopted as the national anthem in 1931.

Over time, the flag and the national anthem have been collectively celebrated together at sports events where individuals typically face the flag, often with hands across their hearts, as the anthem is played. Although they were designed to unite, both symbols can be flashpoints for protest.

Flag burning remains one of the more provocative (and, in my judgment, counterproductive) actions people can take to protest U.S. policies. Perhaps in part because it is so often associated with disrespectful actions by Americas enemies, the act of flag burning prompts visceral reactions against those who employ it.

When state and national legislators sought to enact criminal penalties for flag burning, however, the U.S. Supreme Court reminded the nation in Texas v. Johnson (1989) and U.S. v. Eichman (1990) that flag burning was a form of symbolic speech that the First Amendment protected.

Over the past few years, videos have depicted an increasing number of African Americans (some unarmed) who have died in apparent police overreactions. In protest, some professional athletes chose first to sit, and later to kneel, during the national anthem to express their concerns.

Precedents suggest that students at state colleges and universities have an even greater constitutional right to do so, while the very idea of taking a knee is both peaceful and far more respectful than the act of flag burning.

Students are not robots, and colleges and universities strive to teach students to think and act for themselves. Instead of using threats of withholding state money against schools whose students have enough backbone to express their opinions, we should work together on remedying the issues that have led to their protests.

We should remember that despite all our many positive achievements, Americans once burned down abolitionist printing presses, force fed women suffragists, and jailed peaceful demonstrators protesting racial segregation.

In time, we found that the path that led to renewed national healing was that of listening and improving our laws and procedures so that they more closely approximated equal justice for all. Instead of threatening student athletes, we should listen to them and respect their peaceful protests.

Lets continue to build a state and a nation where all Gods children, regardless of their skin color or political affiliation, can take pride in both of Americas premier symbols.

Dr. John R. Vile is a professor of political science and dean of the University Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of The American Flag: An Encyclopedia of the Stars and Stripes in U.S History, Culture, and Law and many other books.

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Keep Tennessee's knee off the First Amendment - Murfreesboro Post