Dissertation
WHAT CAN I SAY, COACH? THE FREE SPEECH CONUNDRUM OF COLLEGIATE STUDENT ATHLETES
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2017
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/112332
Abstract
Collegiate student-athletes are “students” according to their institutions, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), and even the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). For free speech purposes, however, student-athletes are frequently treated quite differently from their non-athlete classmates. In recent years, social media use has highlighted both the fact that student-athletes behave in many ways very similarly to other college students and the fact that their celebrity draws greater scrutiny of their behavior. In practice, student-athletes commonly consent to restrictions on their ability to speak, as a condition of their participation in their athletic program of choice. This is functionally similar to restrictions upon employee speech, placed there as conditions of employment; yet student-athletes are not employees of their institution or program, per se. Thus their free speech rights are neither as clearly defined as those of typical college students nor are they as well defined as those of employees.
Social media use confounds this dynamic, due to the fact that a public college or university’s ability to regulate social media use by its students without infringing upon their free speech rights is also undefined at present. Nevertheless, America’s institutions of higher education now commonly include provisions related to social media within their codes of conduct.
This project grounds the relationship between collegiate student-athletes and their institutions in legal philosophy and existing case law, before exploring the existing social media regulatory regimes of NCAA Division I athletics programs, and offering suggestions whereby student-athlete free speech rights can be protected while still offering meaningful ways for programs to curate their online public image.
While few responding athletics programs appear to be wantonly abridging their athletes’ speech rights, many reveal they are acutely concerned with social media use by their student-athletes. Taking into account existing precedent regarding college student free speech, regulation of student speech online, public employee speech, and recent NLRB rulings on student-athlete employment status, I conclude that professional students, such as law students or mortuary science students, offer a viable analogy for maximizing both student-athlete speech rights and programmatic control.
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Details
- Title
- WHAT CAN I SAY, COACH? THE FREE SPEECH CONUNDRUM OF COLLEGIATE STUDENT ATHLETES
- Creators
- Jason Baird McConnell
- Contributors
- Elizabeth Blanks Hindman (Advisor)Elizabeth Blanks Hindman (Committee Member)Jeffery Peterson (Committee Member)Bruce Pinkleton (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 193
- Identifiers
- 99900581427401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation