It’s illegal for public universities to gag athletes from speaking to the media and yet that is frequently what they do, says a new report from Brechner Center for Freedom of Information.
In a summary on the Poynter website, the authors say, “Yet for athletes at many of the nation’s top athletic programs, talking to the news media is regarded as a punishable offense. Players caught giving interviews without their athletic department’s approval — about any topic, even one unrelated to sports — can be punished with sanctions including withdrawal of their scholarships, ending their college careers.”
The project found that 86 percent of rulebooks from 58 state universities that compete in the NCAA’s elite Division I forbade athletes from speaking to journalists without permission.
The article lays out the arguments as to why these restrictions are illegal.
It also says, “When athletes’ interactions with the press and public are filtered through university image-minders, wrongdoing will go undetected and multiply.”
Although it’s not discussed in the Poynter article, the same can be said of Congress, federal, state and local agencies, schools, police departments and the many other types of institutions that have instituted these controls.
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