The Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California recently released “Let Us Speak: Pro Athletes’ Views on Social Justice and Activism.” I co-authored the 28-page report with Justin Morrow, our head of sports partnerships and programs.
Based on survey responses from 407 current players in the WNBA, Major League Soccer and National Women’s Soccer League, our study offers one of the most comprehensive cross-league examinations to date of how athletes view racial justice activism, their past participation and their plans for future engagement. While none of the participants were college student athletes at the time that our survey was administered, the study has implications for their involvement in activist activities.
Our research makes painstakingly clear that players want to speak publicly about social injustice, yet too many feel unsafe doing so. Justin and I hope our report not only highlights the survey respondents’ perspectives but also empowers athletes all across America—including those who play on college and university sports teams—to use their power and platforms to highlight and dismantle structures and systems that sustain injustice.
Here are 10 major findings presented in “Let Us Speak”:
- Ninety-four percent of athletes agree that players should be allowed to use their platforms to engage in activism.
- Large majorities support teamwide, leaguewide and cross-league collaboration on justice efforts.
- During summer 2020, 74.8 percent posted about racial injustice on social media. Only 12.3 percent reported doing none of the activism activities listed in our survey during the four months following George Floyd’s murder.
- Social media posting was the most common form of activism and remains the most anticipated future action, with 71.6 percent of athletes planning to post about racial injustice in the future.
- WNBA players reported the highest levels of activism across nearly every measure, including past participation, anticipated activities and fewer perceived barriers to future engagement.
- Black athletes reported the highest levels of visible and political engagement and were most likely to say that nothing would prevent them from participating in future activism.
- While white athletes expressed strong support for racial justice in principle, they were more likely to limit engagement to lower-risk activities, to cite concerns about backlash and to “stay out of politics.”
- Fear of saying “the wrong thing” was the most frequently cited anticipated barrier to future activism.
- Just over half of athletes said nothing would prevent them from engaging in future activism.
- Fewer than 2 percent of survey respondents expressed carelessness about racial injustice.
Our report concludes with 18 practical recommendations for athletes, coaches, executives and pro sports players’ associations. It also includes one concrete suggestion for spectators: “Even fans whose perspectives and political views clash with those being expressed by their favorite athletes should respect those players’ free speech rights.”
That one piece of advice for sports enthusiasts was not arbitrary. “Insisting that they just ‘shut up and dribble’ (or swim, ski, kick the ball, score touchdowns and home runs, etc.) seeks to silence athletes and reduce them to one-dimensional commodities for spectatorship,” Justin and I maintained. This has long been a source of tension between players, fans and sportscasters. In higher education, many student athletes have received versions of this same message from coaches and athletics department administrators. They find it frustrating and at times abusive.
Much has been written about the control of players’ voices in intercollegiate and professional sports. Threats of reducing playing time or revoking scholarships have been long used to suppress undergraduate student athlete activism. Racial dynamics exacerbate this in some institutional contexts.
In the three editions of my report “Black Male Student-Athletes and Racial Inequities in NCAA Division I College Sports,” I have documented the racial mismatch between players on football and men’s basketball teams and their coaches. In the most recent edition, I noted that while Black men comprised 55 percent of football teams and 56 percent of men’s basketball teams, nearly 88 percent of coaches and 85 percent of athletics directors were white. A similar compositional phenomenon pervades women’s college basketball, as I noted in my 2024 report “Racial and Gender Equity for Black Women Student-Athletes.”
For several decades, leaving an institution was extremely difficult for scholarship athletes who felt silenced or for other reasons no longer wanted to remain at a college or university. Per old NCAA policy, transferring required release letters from coaches. That has drastically changed. The transfer portal gives today’s student athletes much more agency. For a variety of reasons that I will articulate in a future Inside Higher Ed “Resident Scholar” column, I am concerned about athletes who transfer more than once.
Notwithstanding, I will acknowledge here that those who care deeply about racial justice, gender equity, poverty, gun violence, educational equity, sexual harassment, voting rights, climate change, antisemitism, transphobia, disability rights, deadly wars in other countries and other issues, yet are told by coaches and administrators on their campuses that they cannot leverage their platforms to highlight and address societal problems, now have the ability to take their voices and athletic talents elsewhere. Transferring is not their only option, though.
In 2015, football players at the University of Missouri threatened to forfeit a game that would have resulted in a $1 million loss if swift, serious actions were not taken to correct long-standing racial problems at the institution. That week, the Mizzou system president and the chancellor of the main campus both resigned. Other substantive commitments were made to improve Black students’ lives there. I argued in a Washington Post article that Black student athletes were the most powerful people on campuses with big-time sports programs at that time. I maintain that stance. In fact, I think they are even more powerful now because of social and digital media platforms and recent NCAA reforms.
Name, image and likeness (NIL) in college sports is narrowly understood as being only about student athletes’ ability to receive monetary benefits. These policies also should afford them the opportunity to use their NIL to speak out on social justice issues. To bolster their confidence, it is important to show contemporary players how some of the most transformative and enduring advancements in the history of American higher education resulted from student activism. And now, thanks to NIL, the ability to transfer to less repressive playing environments, social media and digital platforms, they have the ability to disrupt injustices in our broader society. Extraordinary athlete activists like Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Serena Williams and LeBron James, to name a few, can be presented to them as role models.
Shaun Harper is University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. His most recent book is titled Let’s Talk About DEI: Productive Disagreements About America’s Most Polarizing Topics.
