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The Social Media Censorship of College Athletes

Greg Cormier
Sports Culture & American History Professor Mary Kelly
4/9/16

The censorship of social media posts for college athletes is known across the NCAA and
even beyond. While these athletes simply play a sport at the college level, they represent the
school in a way that can set a good reputation and recruit students for the school. However, if
their behaviors off the field are inappropriate and unjust, the reputation of that individual athlete
is harmed and the school is shined on in a bad light. The first amendment gives these athletes the
right to freedom of speech. With advancements in the media world, many things are taken out of
proportion. The censorship of such athletes makes sense, but has the media taken things too far?
It is hard to wrap your head around the fact that these are teenagers and young adults, but with
immense athletic skill and commitment to their respected sport, responsibility comes with the job
title. Social media is one powerful tool that can help someone gain respect and popularity, but
can also ruin a persons life in a single tweet or Facebook post depending on the context.
Aside from newer media outlets such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook remain the
most popular forms of media used. Facebook was created at Harvard University to initially target
only those individuals with an .Edu email address indicating college affiliation. Twitter, in
contrast, was intended to provide brief, real-time updates about individuals to others with a
common interest. Both outlets allow public and private settings for posts. However, most people
realize that anything posted even privately has the potential to go viral at any moment.
Unfortunate examples include former Texas football player, Buck Burnette, who posted the
following statement on his Facebook page during election night 2010: "all the hunters gather up,
we have a [racial slur] in the Whitehouse." Burnette allegedly received the message via text from
a friend and decided to post it on his own Facebook page. This resulted in a dismissal from the
University of Texas football team. Without even recognizing it as a choice, Burnett tragically

chose free speech over football (Penrose, 2012). This is where college athletes should be aware
that being able to say what you want because you have freedom of speech does not necessarily
mean you should. It is in a sense, abusing the power of your freedom to speak. This is why a
higher level of censorship has been brought in. Since most of these cases date back around 20102012, steps towards avoiding speech issues have been made.
A lot of the time, college students may feel like they are being treated as children since
coaches and administration monitor social media of their athletes to assure there are no explicit
or inappropriate posts. Is it ethically correct to monitor and censor so closely? Fact of the matter
is that its not just athletes, but all students who can be punished for their social media posts.
The safety of schools has been cited as a reason-perhaps the strongest reason-to deny students
First Amendment rights. Guaranteed freedom of expression may lead to the airing of threats or
racial bigotry or to sexual harassment (Warnick, 2009). The difference between social media
posts and saying something vocally is that social media is visual and it sticks. Once it is posted,
there is no turning back. Media also provides and outlet to far more people than an in-person
conversation. Expressing yourself through social media risks the idea of people taking what you
said the wrong way, and also sharing your post which can start uproars of responses and
controversy.
This is where the question of what is ethically correct comes into play. Censorship makes
sense in most cases. However, the issue can go all the way back to 1965 when the Tinker VS Des
Moines case took place. This case was basically a question of whether or not a form of symbolic
protest violates students' freedom of speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.
(Oyez.org, 2016) The overall ruling was that they are protected by their first amendment rights,
but not when they interfere with the school process and distract other students. If a social media

post from a college athlete does not harm anybody, is it necessary to censor it and delete it?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and unless it hurts another person mentally or any other
way, that freedom of speech should exist. Under the substantial disruption test found in Tinker,
public universities unconstitutionally restrict the First Amendment speech rights of studentathletes when they ban those students from using social media. In order for these bans to be
constitutional, the schools and coaches would have to show that the banned speech either has
disrupted or would substantially disrupt school operations. Tinker has almost always been
applied to school settings, used to evaluate whether the speech caused a substantial disruption to
the institutions educational objectives (Gay, 2011).
That statement exemplifies pretty much anytime there has been an issue. Racial slurs,
gender related, and other substantially noticeable posts are the ones that get student athletes into
trouble. Social networking should not change the constitutional protections of the First
Amendment. Social networking and Internet speech should be protected by the First Amendment
in the same way that traditional avenues of speech are protected. The Internet has the potential to
be the self-operating marketplace of ideas. Additionally, the substantive constitutional rights
of the student athlete should be no different than the constitutional rights of a student. In
recognizing that student athletes have these protected rights, colleges and universities should be
subject to strict scrutiny if they attempt to use a scholarship or membership on a team as leverage
to get the student athlete to conform to the schools wishes, because such acts violate the
unconstitutional conditions doctrine (Walsh, 2011). It is practically written in the contract that
athletes will have to obey these rules in order to play for that team. With hindsight, there should
be no complaint from the athletes since they agreed to these terms.

All in all, since the day Roone Arledge from ABC realized what television could do for
sports, the media only got bigger. We are going to add show business to sports, said Arledge
(Gorn, 1993, pg. 239). That is all it really is. Its an entertainment business where any story that
can be made, will be simply broadcasted to the world. Big time college athletes and the
professionals deal with that limelight. That is the exact reason why the censorship of media is
made for college athletes. Its a business and theyre recognized by a lot of people for their
talents. Coaches want players to realize that it is a privilege to represent the college or university
that they play for. Is it ethically correct to monitor what they say? It seems like it is reasonable to
make sure nothing is brought out of context and that no one gets hurt. Should athletes be
completely banned from social media? Unless they have a tendency to post things that somehow
interfere with the learning process of other students, then absolutely not. College athletes may
not be paid to play, but they most certainly get their benefits from playing. If a player does not
want to be responsible, then administration and the coaching staff will take action. College
athletes may be censored if they cross that line, but for the most part the freedom of speech is
there. When behind the computer screen or cell phone, college athletes have that choice to post
what they want, but they must be aware of the consequences and boundaries that have been
drawn out for them.

Bibliography

Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech. "Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community
School District." Oyez. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/21 (accessed April 11, 2016).
Gay, J. "Hands off Twitter: Are NCAA Student-Athlete Social Media Bans Unconstitutional."
Fla. St. UL Rev. 39 (2011): 781.
Gorn, Elliott J., Warren Goldstein, and Eric Foner. "6 / Money, Television, Drugs, and the Win:
Dilemmas of Modern Sports." In A Brief History of American Sports, 238-39. New York,
NY: Hill and Wang, 1993.
Penrose, Meg Mary Margaret, Free Speech Versus Free Education: First Amendment
Considerations In Limiting Student Athletes' Use of Social Media (2012). Mississippi
Sports Law Journal, Vol. 1, Pg. 71 (2012).
Warnick, Bryan R. "Student Speech Rights and the Special Characteristics of the School
Environment." Educational Researcher 38, no. 3 (04, 2009): 200-215.
http://search.proquest.com/docview/216902760?accountid=37705.