Donald Sterling and Free Speech

Can we clear a few things up here? Great. The penalties handed out by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to Clippers owner Donald Sterling for his unarguably racist comments which were recorded and then published was not a violation of Mr Sterling’s right to free speech.

The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law…” (my emphasis added, obviously). The NBA is private organization with its own constitution and governance. The punishment delivered was within the terms of that league constitution which all members, including players, owners, and employees of the organization must abide. There is not going to be an FBI investigation and a federal criminal trial over this issue, because the Department of Justice does not care.

There are anti-discrimination laws on the books, which do grant rights in certain activities of private organizations (e.g. employment law) and therefore come somewhere near this issue. However, the freedom to say racist things is not a protected trait, unlike ethnicity, age, sex, religion, etc. For those (Libertarians?) saying “I thought this was America?” and “What happened to free speech?” they are just conveying how little they know about the law and the US Constitution (or being a Libertarian for that matter).

Ultimately, Mr. Sterling’s comments were an expression of opinion, a form of protected speech, which on its own, I don’t believe teeters into the realm of hate speech. But while speech like Mr. Sterling’s is not illegal, it can certainly get you into trouble. It’s the same reason that a country club can kick you out if you don’t wear white clothes, or the Boy Scouts of American can kick you out if you’re gay. In the NBA, you can be kicked out for being racist, especially in 2014.

What would have happened to the league and its credibility, and to the Clippers organization, were this incident not punished swiftly and harshly, would have been devastating. The perception that a league, dominated by African Americans (who have won 24 of the last 27 MVP awards, and 47 of 58 overall), could be tolerant to ownership by someone with Donald Sterling’s personal beliefs on race, would completely scar the league’s credibility, just as much as having gambling referees. It would damage the NBA’s reputation much more dramatically than a gay individual would damage the Scouts’, though Scout members will surely disagree with me here.

You can say this decision was about the money. But you can say any decision is about money, because there are financial repercussions to every decision. Many season ticket holders and advertisers were already cutting ties with the Clippers, thus tremendously devaluing one of the league’s 30 teams. But for once, I really think it was the true principle of the matter that led to Mr. Sterling’s expulsion. As many have stated already, you cannot tolerate racism in the NBA or sports in general.

It has always been my view that the playing field (the literal one, not the figurative) was an amazing, uniting place where people of all sorts of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds could get together and interact in a fun, healthy, and competitive way.  That is why events like the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup are so interesting, to see the best of what various nations and cultures have to offer in athletic competition. I can’t think of anything can be as globally inclusive and entertaining as sports. Spare me the Eurovision rebuttal.

I once played pickup basketball in a park in Sweden with some locals I didn’t know, a few of which didn’t speak English, at least not to me. Playing a game with someone different enough from me that we could not verbally communicate was an experience whose value was not lost on me. For a little while we were teammates with the same goal playing together against a common opponent. We had to work together based on our knowledge of a game we had each learned separately but still mutually understood. Yeah we lost but had a pretty good time. Go play pickup basketball in a foreign country! It’s a great experience that erases borders faster than Amazon. The NBA is a similar place of national and ethnic mixing that just happens to make shitloads of money. The organization who was revealed as sacrificing principles for money in this mess was not the NBA, but rather the NAACP who gave Mr. Sterling their Lifetime Achievement Award because he gave them lots of money over the years.

A quick aside: Whether or not a forced sale of the Clippers is legal is very unclear to me, as I am not a lawyer in this field. Offhand, I don’t know of any precedent, aside from eminent domain which exclusively involves acquisition by the government, and bankruptcy, where an individual was forced to part with property they justly acquired. It may be an issue that gets stuck in court for a long while, and may in fact be a violation of Mr. Sterling's rights, depending on how this procedure is outlined in the NBA constitution. Hopefully Mr. Sterling will quietly bow out, take his payday, and ride off into the sunset to go quietly hang out with the culture of racists whose company he prefers, but somehow I doubt it. 

Either way, I find Mr. Silver's decision completely justified and think it shows a strong sense of moral principle and not just financial concern. How quickly and decisively it was delivered showed that while racism is not dead, those who publicly support it are dwindling. And that's a good thing.