NBA coaches Steve Kerr and Doc Rivers joined a dozen other current and former coaches and athletic officials to condemn political interference with college campuses in a joint statement issued Thursday.
The statement highlights the effects this repression is having on athletes — and comes the day before President Donald Trump’s press event featuring a cadre of sports figures he’s assembled to “fix” college sports with the help of a right-wing oil baron.
Educational repression has been an integral part of Trump’s agenda in his second term. His administration has targeted and incarcerated students who’ve expressed political views it opposes, and it’s threatened schools’ funding unless they agree to take steps like eliminating diversity programs, giving up control over their curricula and making a host of other changes favorable to conservatives. Several Republican-controlled states have imposed their own restrictions on what students can say, learn and organize around at schools across a range of educational levels.
The public statement signed by Kerr and Rivers, who coach the Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks, respectively, was issued under the banner of “Coaches for Campus Freedom.” Other signatories to the letter include former Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim, current Harvard men’s basketball coach Tommy Amaker, former Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Muffett McGraw, current Yale men’s basketball coach James Jones and former Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein.
It reads, in part:
Right now, at both the federal and state levels, acts of political interference threaten the independence of our colleges and universities. Punitive cuts to research funds, censoring of curricula, intimidation of university leaders and faculty, and the deployment of federal enforcement officers on college grounds are dividing our campuses and detracting from teaching and learning. Steep funding cuts put women’s and Olympic sports at risk. That point about threats to women’s sports is key to note, given the Trump administration has undermined funding for women’s athletics even as it has pushed anti-transgender policies under the guise of protecting women’s sports. The letter continues: When students are afraid to speak their minds, they cannot give their all. When campuses are polarized, it’s hard to maintain the ‘one team’ spirit we instill in the locker room. The unprecedented pressure by the federal and certain state governments on colleges and universities undercuts the values we have sought to instill in student-athletes. The contrast between the principles espoused in this letter and some of the toxic arguments embraced by current and former coaches who’ve joined the MAGA movement is stark. That latter group includes people like Alabama GOP senator and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, who’s supported Trump and the MAGA movement’s destructive educational agenda. It also includes former Auburn and University of Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who recently spoke in support of a bigoted bill in his state that would require textbooks to remove references to the West Bank and replace them with biblical place names “Judea” and “Samaria,” a change that critics have decried for erasing Palestinian’s historical presence in the region. As Trump and his allies recruit sports figures as mouthpieces to promote his political movement, it’s useful — even essential — that the public hears from prominent athletes and officials who disagree. The “Coaches for Campus Freedom” letter invites others to sign, and it’ll be instructive to see who does and who abstains.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
