BleedGopher
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per Slate:
To state the obvious, this desperate, revisionist telling makes no sense. For one thing, in announcing the boycott the team had already weighed in on whether their teammates had “committed misconduct,” asserting without equivocation that the suspended players were “falsely accused.” Backpedaling on that point now reeks of insincerity. So, too, does the complete reversal of logic regarding the boycott. Not playing in a football game was supposed to convince the university and the public that they were right. Now, playing in a football game is supposed to do that. The players’ messaging has no consistency because what they want isn’t justice; it’s the perpetuation of the status quo. The players also clearly and fundamentally do not understand what due process entails. Not being allowed to play football isn't a violation of anyone’s due process rights, and the school is well within its purview in suspending those found to have violated its policy. Maybe this, at least, is something the team might come to “slowly understand.”
At bottom, the Minnesota boycott was an old story smuggled in under the banner of social justice—not one of athletes mobilizing for justice, but of institutions closing ranks when one of their own is accused of wrongdoing. Note that the Minnesota coaching staff backed the players: a good tell that the boycott was something other than the cry of the marginalized. After the boycott was announced, head coach Tracy Claeys tweeted: “Have never been more proud of our kids. I respect their rights & support their effort to make a better world!” (For comparison, look at Northwestern football’s attempt to unionize, a move that would have certainly shaken up the power structure. Head coach Pat Fitzgerald urged his players not to vote for unionization.) Think Penn State, in other words, not Missouri. Or think Baylor and Florida State. If either of those schools had handled its high-profile sexual assault cases differently, we might well have seen this type of player protest earlier. The football players’ boycott at Minnesota inadvertently demonstrated something radical: A university adequately handled an accusation of sexual assault.
Jock activism was bound to butt up against other parts of the social justice project, particularly in a campus context. Athletes occupy a contradictory place in the university ecosystem. They are a kind of dual citizen—an exploited class, in that they’re unpaid labor, and a privileged class, with all the perks and social advantages that come with being a jock. Often, because of the latter, they’re dismissed when they point out the former. (Athletes shouldn’t get paid! They get scholarships and free clothes!) The Minnesota players borrowed the moral leverage they’d accrued as members of the former to advance their prerogatives as members of the latter. Misinformed, reactionary, and entitled, the boycott was a reminder that even—especially—in the age of the jock awakening, athletes on any level can be fashioned into weapons for the status quo.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...football_boycott_wasn_t_athlete_activism.html
Go Gophers!!
To state the obvious, this desperate, revisionist telling makes no sense. For one thing, in announcing the boycott the team had already weighed in on whether their teammates had “committed misconduct,” asserting without equivocation that the suspended players were “falsely accused.” Backpedaling on that point now reeks of insincerity. So, too, does the complete reversal of logic regarding the boycott. Not playing in a football game was supposed to convince the university and the public that they were right. Now, playing in a football game is supposed to do that. The players’ messaging has no consistency because what they want isn’t justice; it’s the perpetuation of the status quo. The players also clearly and fundamentally do not understand what due process entails. Not being allowed to play football isn't a violation of anyone’s due process rights, and the school is well within its purview in suspending those found to have violated its policy. Maybe this, at least, is something the team might come to “slowly understand.”
At bottom, the Minnesota boycott was an old story smuggled in under the banner of social justice—not one of athletes mobilizing for justice, but of institutions closing ranks when one of their own is accused of wrongdoing. Note that the Minnesota coaching staff backed the players: a good tell that the boycott was something other than the cry of the marginalized. After the boycott was announced, head coach Tracy Claeys tweeted: “Have never been more proud of our kids. I respect their rights & support their effort to make a better world!” (For comparison, look at Northwestern football’s attempt to unionize, a move that would have certainly shaken up the power structure. Head coach Pat Fitzgerald urged his players not to vote for unionization.) Think Penn State, in other words, not Missouri. Or think Baylor and Florida State. If either of those schools had handled its high-profile sexual assault cases differently, we might well have seen this type of player protest earlier. The football players’ boycott at Minnesota inadvertently demonstrated something radical: A university adequately handled an accusation of sexual assault.
Jock activism was bound to butt up against other parts of the social justice project, particularly in a campus context. Athletes occupy a contradictory place in the university ecosystem. They are a kind of dual citizen—an exploited class, in that they’re unpaid labor, and a privileged class, with all the perks and social advantages that come with being a jock. Often, because of the latter, they’re dismissed when they point out the former. (Athletes shouldn’t get paid! They get scholarships and free clothes!) The Minnesota players borrowed the moral leverage they’d accrued as members of the former to advance their prerogatives as members of the latter. Misinformed, reactionary, and entitled, the boycott was a reminder that even—especially—in the age of the jock awakening, athletes on any level can be fashioned into weapons for the status quo.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...football_boycott_wasn_t_athlete_activism.html
Go Gophers!!