— Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners,
when somebody disrespects our flag,
to say, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now.”
“Out, he’s fired.”
“He’s fired!”
— It just amazes me,
with everything else going on in this world,
especially involving the U.S.,
that’s what you’re concerned about, my man?
— The battle over free speech in the NFL may be new.
It may involve millionaire athletes who can speak directly to their fans.
But it has direct ties to the fight waged
by a coalition of UC Berkeley students from across the political spectrum,
known as the Free Speech Movement.
The FSM started in the fall of 1964,
after the Berkeley administration banned all political activity on campus.
The FSM’s goal was a complete repeal of the ban.
But the energy that drove the movement came from deeper grievances:
students were fed up with a university that treated education like an industry.
— What the railroads did for the second half of the last century,
and the automobile for the first half of this century,
may be done for the second half of this century by the knowledge industry—
and that is to serve as the focal point for national growth.
— So when Berkeley handed down its ban on political activity,
it inadvertently galvanized thousands of frustrated students into acts of rebellion.
— They stepped on everyone’s toes at the same time.
They didn’t ban civil rights organizations—
they banned all activities by student political organizations.
— The fight started over some small tables on a sidewalk
where students would raise money for political causes they supported.
— The university’s function is the encouragement and the dissemination of ideas.
These silly little card tables, for me, was part of my education.
I had a right to that,
just as I had a right to go to class.
— When a former student was arrested for setting up one of these tables,
a 32-hour standoff ensued.
Students surrounded the police car to prevent it from leaving.
It wasn’t just liberals that came out in support—
the movement brought together everyone
from the campus Republicans and Students for Goldwater,
to the Socialist Party and Women for Peace.
— It was a very broad movement.
It had lots of people.
The bulk of the most active were of one strain of left or another.
But the most impressive thing about the Free Speech Movement—
and I have the inside view, I was at every meeting—
everyone understood that the key to our strength
was our unity and worked really hard to maintain that.
— Months of protests and failed negotiations culminated in a massive sit-in at Sproul Hall,
where the FSM’s leader, Mario Savio,
gave an iconic speech about halting the gears of President Kerr’s so-called knowledge factory.
— Well, I ask you to consider:
If this is a firm,
and if the board of regents are the board of directors;
and if President Kerr in fact is the manager;
then I’ll tell you something— the faculty are a bunch of employees,
and we’re the raw material!
But we’re a bunch of raw materials
that don’t mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University,
be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone!
We’re human beings!
— 800 students were arrested at Sproul.
The action eventually forced the administration to repeal its ban on political activity,
and that success inspired a massive wave
of protests and campus takeovers at schools across the country.
Today, NFL players are fighting for many of the same things the FSM did:
the right to protest,
and the right to keep both their professional identities and their personal beliefs
in the face of those who would deny them one or the other.
— I think what the president is saying,
is that the owners should have a rule
that players should have to stand and respect for the national anthem.
They can do free speech on their own time.
— President Trump’s speech was an assault
on our most cherished right, freedom of speech.
And collectively,
we felt like we had to do something for this game.