Benefield: Muting protest by Mendocino girls is an opportunity lost

Add the Mendocino High School girls basketball team to the list of athletes and teams that have taken a political stand on something they believe in: The Los Angeles Clippers, the Cal women’s basketball team, John Carlos and Tommie Smith.

And add Fort Bragg High School officials to the roster of those who have misstepped trying to balance America’s guaranteed freedom of political speech with a desire not to offend.

It was a dust-up that garnered national attention seemingly overnight. The boys and girls basketball teams from Mendocino High were banned from Fort Bragg High School’s annual Vern Piver Holiday Classic that began Monday until they agreed not to wear warmup T-shirts bearing the last words of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died after being put in a chokehold by a police officer in New York City. Garner’s death, as well as a number of other black men at the hands of police officers, has prompted protests - some civil, some not - across the country.

After the ultimatum, the boys squad agreed to drop the shirts and play. The girls? The majority of them said they’d rather sit it out than capitulate.

But on Monday school officials said the T-shirts could return so long as no problems erupt. Of course, that’s too late for the girls’ squad which was replaced by another team.

So this is what people I talked to Monday call a “teachable moment” about the not always black and white arguments that emerge when we all start wrestling with “freedom of speech” and what it really means. And perhaps it’s not just students who are reaping the rewards of a very public discourse.

“My first thought was, boy, talk about trying to destroy a civil curiosity by kids who should be right at that age where they are trying to decide ‘Am I going to be involved? Am I going to be part of the body politic? Am I going to be part of a civil society? Am I going to participate?’ ” said Sonoma State University political science professor Andy Merrifield.

School officials had contended that the shirts - and their political message - could threaten the safety of all who attend the tournament.

That reasoning was still in play, even Monday when the district backed off from its ban.

Fort Bragg Unified School District lawyer Patrick Wilson told the Associated Press that officials wanted to avoid the cost of a legal battle but remained concerned the shirts could cause a disruption in the community that’s still mourning the death of a sheriff’s deputy killed in the line of duty in March.

“The concern is, you are in a packed auditorium, this is a polarizing issue and it’s about something that happened in New York,” he said. “I think it’s fine for people to protest about it, but emotions are still raw in that area.”

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have an issue that happened in New York City that has nothing to do with us in coastal California and yet also say the issue will inflame emotions still raw over a local deputy’s death in the line of duty.

Wilson’s comment that it’s “fine” to protest about it implies that it’s OK, just not here, just not now. But what better place than a school to hash out ideas and beliefs? What better place than a school to introduce opposing ideas?

It seems the girls basketball team understands this.

Just two weeks ago, the members of Cal’s women’s basketball team were lauded for their decision to wear T-shirts with “Black lives matter” written on them, along with the names of black victims of violence. They were saluted for taking a stand in a forum where the world is paying attention. Let’s face it, the world pays more attention when Brittany Boyd is on the basketball court than attending class or sitting at the cafe.

“As student athletes at Cal, our young women have a voice and a platform, and they chose to use it today,” Cal’s head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said in a statement. “They want to be part of a solution, and they took the steps that were in their power today.”

The steps that were in their power. That part sticks with me.

As a group, as a team, the Mendocino High girls squad made a similar statement and used means within their power. We listened in part because of, and not despite of, the fact that it was made on a basketball court. Some have argued that on the basketball court (or soccer field or baseball diamond) is not where this discussion belongs. But what if that is one of the only arenas where we are paying attention, where we are listening to what young people have to say?

“Those who think this is neither the time or place really want to tell us there is never a time or place for this message,” law professor Roger I. Abrams said.

Abrams, professor at Northeastern University School of Law who last year published “Playing Tough, The World of Sports and Politics,” called the girls team’s forfeiture of their place in the tournament “extraordinary.”

Putting constraints on freedom of speech - where, when, how - means it’s no longer free.

“It will always prove to be inconvenient, it will always prove to be disruptive or someone will be annoyed by it because people won’t like the message,” Abrams said.

It was supremely convenient for the team because they had an audience. And what’s the point of making a statement if no one is around to see or hear it?

But that forum - a multi-school basketball tournament - also introduces a facet of the debate I’m still wrestling with.

The Cardinals show up for away games with Mendocino etched across their jerseys. There are no names on the back. Just “Mendocino” and players’ numbers. Does that mean that when wearing that uniform those players represent more than themselves, more than their own ideas? I say yes, and that complicates things some.

So what if the statement “I can’t breathe” doesn’t represent the feelings of all associated with Mendocino High? Surely it doesn’t.

What about the Mendocino Cardinal who is deeply opposed to the message? A kid who doesn’t have the same stage the basketball team has? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I think it’s worth pondering.

Sports have been used as a political stage since the beginning of time and modern sport is filled with political statements: the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s raised fists in Mexico City in 1968, the U.S. boycott of the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow.

When members of the Los Angeles Clippers wore their warmup jerseys inside out last season, they too were making a statement against racist remarks made by then team owner Donald Sterling. You could argue they were paid employees and ought to have worn the garb mandated by their boss. And that argument holds some water but not enough to quash what was a noteworthy, and newsworthy, statement.

The Mendocino High girls basketball took a similar stand.

And if Fort Bragg High School officials felt that for basketball players to warm up in shirts that read “I can’t breathe” jeopardized their ability to “ensure that we can protect the safety and well-being of everyone in attendance,” as principal Rebecca Walker said in a statement, then isn’t it incumbent on school officials to focus on those who might be violent, rather than those who might wear T-shirts?

“Wearing a T-shirt to a basketball game to warm up is not crying ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater. It does not rise to an immediate threat, or it shouldn’t,” Merrifield said.

If school officials believed threats of violence to be real, their obligation is to deal with those who are threatening violence, “not people expressing themselves in a peaceful, respectful manner,” Merrifield said.

And if we disagree with the protest itself, or the statement the students are making, then let’s engage them. Let’s ask why the shirts, why now, why here? Have them articulate their beliefs while others articulate theirs.

But to shut the door on discussion serves no one.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com and on Twitter @benefield.