I'm joined by Warde Manuel,

the Dano Our Shepherd Director of Athletics at the University of Michigan,

to continue our discussion about free speech where there's a lot of debate regarding

whether or not sport is a viable platform for political and social activism,

what's your thought on that?

Well, I think it's often a difficult discussion to have around sports.

I mean, I think when people come to a sporting event,

be it high school, college, professional,

a lot of people are coming to get away from

their daily lives and cheer on their family, their friends,

their institution, and want to see a great event,

and great athletes compete in an event.

And so, I think on the one hand people say,

"Well, I want to come and get away from that.

I want to come and enjoy sport and watch the competition."

On the other end, the people who are participating in the sport are also people in

our society who have their own beliefs and thoughts about the good and the bad,

and should be in the sense of the freedom of speech that we honor in America,

should be allowed in that platform,

in that quote unquote,

in the professional sense,

work environment, to make statements, challenge,

make particularly symbolic kneel down sort of sentiment in their work environments,

similar to when I go to work and some people want to express their views and

talk about politics and things that are on their mind in our work environment.

But I think, it has to be done in a way that not only is this the symbolism,

it's the education, it's what are you doing to help make a difference.

Now, what I tell our student athletes is,

"I support your right to make a statement in some way shape or form,

either verbally or by symbolically making that statement.

But you have to be educated enough and have

enough information to be out there to defend your perspective and what you

want to do and to be challenged without allowing the emotion to get to you but to really

have the discourse and debate about what's important to you and why you're doing that."

So, you alluded to some of the rights of

expressions that you think your athletes should have.

What are the boundaries?

Are there boundaries or are there some really out of

bounds notions of speech or expression that should not be allowed in sport?

Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't want

our student athletes doing lewd and lascivious acts as it relates to

in the name of freedom of speech and speaking out against something in

our society or using profanity as a way to do it or in a sense,

what I've said to our student athletes

is particularly around a lot of this stuff came around the national anthem,

when people have their eyes on the flag,

and the court, and everything silent,

and these things come around,

I said, "Make sure it's respectful.

Don't do anything to disrespect yourself,

the flag, and institution."

And in that sense, I think,

in the last couple of years,

we've had some expressions where our football team

has gotten together and they put their arms around each other,

they've gathered in a circle and that was their way,

it wasn't something that they got me to sign off on.

But it was their way of saying,

we want to express our discontent with something that's going on in our society,

in that particular case,

it was the killing of

unarmed black men in one year and

other year with some protests and stuff that was going on campus.

But I felt that they did it in a very respectful manner and I

think everybody reflects on how they want to reflect and I've said all along,

my father having served in the military,

my father-in-law, my brother-in-law having fought,

all of them fought at different times and different wars,

served at different times in different wars,

it's not something I would do but I also respect

others rights to do it at that particular time,

as long as, I've asked them to be respectful about the way that they do those things.

So, you mentioned your support and you have been

pretty visibly supportive of the student athlete.

I mean, you participate in a video where

the students are having messages of social justice,

Michigan student athletes have worn tee shirts with messages of social justice, and so,

you've really been doing a lot to support the causes but

not a lot of managers and administrators are taking this stance.

Why did you take this stance?

Well, I think we have a role here at the university

to educate our student athletes and help them.

I'm sorry, educate our students throughout

the university and our student athletes are part of that.

So for me, it's getting them to understand how to develop the information,

develop their perspective, accept challenges of that perspective,

have discourse and discussion around it so that they can grow.

Because they're going to go out into their communities,

not necessarily, 98 percent

of our student athletes will go pro in something other than sports.

So, they're going out into their communities,

going out in the workplace,

and I think it's incumbent upon us to teach our young people here at

the university how to handle differences,

how to handle discussions,

how to sort of replace emotions with

information so you can have the challenging discussions that lead us to be better.

And so for me, I'm supportive of not,

I don't agree with everything that they want,

that they're railing against,

but I do want to teach them how best

to challenge and to gather that information and support them,

not because it's something that necessarily drives me to

protests but because it's something that they

find very important to them in their lives for various reasons.

Well, you talk about some challenges.

Now, you are the leader of a very prominent athletic enterprise.

And so, there are challenges, no doubt,

that comes with athletes when they're being free in their expressions and their speech,

what are some of the challenges implication that you face as

an athletic director by supporting or allowing the athletes to speak,

is it push back from alumni,

from fans, from coaches?

Yeah. We're blessed here at

the University of Michigan to have the largest college football stadium,

largest stadium in the country,

and we have 110 to 114 thousand people on any given Saturday,

we have a home game.

In 14,000 people, there's many different perspectives

and what I say to people when they either say to me verbally or in writing,

"As you have your opinion,

these students, these individuals, have their opinions.

They have a different platform to do it than a lot of people. So, it's more visible."

But yes, there's push back from fans and what I try to get them to understand is,

just like you have a right to write me a letter or verbally tell me that you disagree,

they have a right in a platform to say that this is

what I believe in or this is what I don't believe in.

And so, I really tried to get our fans, and our donors,

and people to understand we're here to educate them and just because our

values around freedom of speech we want to uphold at the University of Michigan,

doesn't mean we all agree with them but we can't only pick and choose what

we want our students to say or do and then only if we agree with it,

do we allow them to do it.

And so, it's one of these things where,

yeah, there's push backs,

there's conversations but most of the conversations here that I've had,

the super majority of conversations,

have been very respectful, understanding, thoughtful.

And they usually start with,

"I know you have to support

the students rights and freedom of speech is very important to me,

and very important, but I just don't like when they do so-and-so."

And so, we talk through it and usually,

everybody, again, is welcome to their own opinion.

And we just try to work through it.

It's been an issue here and there but it's not a big issue in our fanbase,

because I think the way our students have done it has shown respect.

And so, our fanbase has been less negative and reactive in

comparison to some of the reaction in

the professional sports world, particularly professional football.

So, you talk about the fan base and there's lots of conversations about,

what are the free speech right of fans?

The fans have a right to berate the athlete.

So what's your perspective about the fans right?

I know it's instinctive between sportsmanship and free speech but when you.

Have you been into some of the venue?

Hey, Listen.

Listen.

Exactly. Fans express their freedom of speech on a minute by minute basis,

both for their team,

against their team sometimes if you're not doing well,

and usually against the competition in a very open fashion.

We try to send a message of civility and speak positively and support

our team here at Michigan and less focus on

the negative wording towards the other team but that doesn't always work.

We can't police and we won't police everybody in that sense.

But we try to limit it.

We try to limit it because we have families that are here,

we have children that come to our competitions.

And so, we're not trying to cut off somebody's ability to say something,

we're just trying to say be respectful of those around

you when you're using negative terms or bad words, profanity, and the like.

But yes, we, our fans,

don't have a problem with free speech. They don't.

So, you talk about your support.

And again, I want to commend you,

you do a great job of setting a culture where

athletes feel they can express their opinions and perceptions,

but you have a team of people helping you to manage this conglomerate of an enterprise.

Talk a little bit about how you are equipping or preparing

your staff and your coaches to support the athletes,

like this because many of them say,

"I don't have this social consciousness.

I came here to coach,

which is a feat in and of itself."

How are you helping your staff to be change agents as well?

Well, we talk about it, I mean, again,

I have 26, 27 head coaches of 900 plus student athletes.

I have a staff of 375 people in total,

all with different perspectives, different backgrounds,

come from different cultures,

different beliefs, and the like.

So, part of the discussion is really getting

people to understand that we're a like and we're different in many ways.

And that it's important as they want to be heard,

that they allow their student athletes to have a voice.

And so it's really an expression and what I try to do is

just set the tone and the expectation that this is okay.

It's okay for our student athletes to have a perspective.

Not only do is it okay, we want to seek it out.

We want to understand.

And I don't tell them it's going, our student athletes,

is going to be easy and we're not always going to do what they

think we need to do, but we're going to have discussion.

We want to know, we want to have that kind of collaborative thoughts that go into it.

But ultimately, the coaches, our policies,

our leadership around certain things that we find to be of

value to help them are going to be there and consistent.

But that it's really okay for our students to have a voice.

It's okay for our staff to have a voice.

And again, it goes to, even with the staff.

How are you doing it? How's the respect?

How's the interaction with those who disagree with you?

We don't want a workplace that gets into loud,

emotional discussions around every topic that somebody is bothered by or whatever,

but we do want to have discourse if we can,

if something's bothering somebody,

so that information, thoughts can be shared where we can get better.

And I think if we're focusing on helping people to be better,

helping people to be stronger,

to be more educated,

to drive success in their lives,

not only on the field of play but off the field,

in the classroom, personal growth, and development.

If that's our focus then I think we're all going to do it the right way.

Right. And speaking of doing the right way, I think you are,

I think you're really intentional in creating students,

student athletes, who are doing great in the classrooms,

great in the field of competition, and good citizen.

So, as we conclude here,

you've been very insightful in sharing with us some very unique insight.

What call to action or concluding remarks

do you have about this notion of free speech in sport?

Because we know this debate will continue.

Oh, sure it will. I mean, you know what?

It's been around for a long time.

You go back, in the sense of our history,

when you think about the discussion around race,

Jack Johnson was talking about this in the early 1900s,

as a boxer and this in our society and some of the things

that he did and the emotions and the sense.

You fast forward through

Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali and you look at what happened in

the 68 Olympics and you just see sport and

freedom of speech and freedom of expression for or against something.

In most of those cases it was for rights of black people,

African-American people, against those who wanted to hold those rights down.

You look at those kind of things and that's where I say,

"Sports has made a difference".

You just see, when Branch Rickey,

U of M, Law grad,

brings Jackie Robinson in and people have a sense of

seeing African-Americans and black people in a different perspective.

So I think you're always going to have this intersection of sport,

and of freedom of expression,

and a voice because of the platform and the stage that exists,

because of and particularly in America and elsewhere around the world,

but particularly in America, where we hold our sports figures up on a pedestal.

And we give them that platform and that avenue to express themselves and put a camera

in front of their face and want to see them perform,

we also have to listen to their thoughts, and in that,

they have a powerful voice when they want to

speak for or against something in our society.

And I think, they should use their voice when they feel it's important to them.

Just like anybody else has the right to freedom of

speech is one of the founding principles of this country.

And so for me,

my belief runs deep that we need to support

people's rights to do it in a manner that's respectful, that's all.

All I ever say to our students is to try to

do it in a respectful manner because you're going

to be heard more, if you do it that way.

If you do it out of emotions, you get mad,

and you're cursing at somebody,

and then I can hear you,

you're not gonna change anything.

It doesn't mean you don't get loud in a discussion,

but you got to know what you're talking about.

You've got to come with it and educational information and those kind of things.

And so for me, I don't think it's going to ever go away, and I think it's helpful.

I think it's immensely helpful to us as a society.

I think back in and thinking to President Gerald Ford

in coming to Michigan and having a black teammate in Willis Ward and befriending him,

and what that helped our society when he

became president in terms of him being fiscally conservative.

But socially, he was more liberal than his counterparts,

and it was because he had a different experience.

And he spoke about that and he talked about that,

Jack Kemp had the same thing.

So, it worked with Jackie Robinson,

Muhammad Ali, Jack Johnson,

but then you see President Ford.

And so it works both ways,

it works across races,

and gender, and those kind of things.

When people have experiences in express and debate and start to understand each other,

our world is a better place.

Absolutely. And speaking of our world being a better place,

I agree with you that sport has made a change.

It does have social implications,

but I think as leaders like you that bring that consciousness to the role that

really helps us to maximize the social political implications of sport.

Thank you so much for your insight. It's been valuable.

You're welcome.

And again, Warde Manuel,

The Don O R Shepherd,

Director of Athletics at the University of Michigan. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

The Rights and Responsibilities of Student-Athletes: A Discussion with Warde Manuel

Free Speech in Sport Teach-Out

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