Standing to Kneel: Analyzing NFL Players’ Freedom to Protest During the Playing of the U.S. National Anthem

This Article analyzes whether an NFL player who protests during the national anthem has any legal recourse if he is fired—or not hired—as a result of his political protests. Part I of this Article describes the history of NFL players engaging in political protests during the national anthem. Part II explores whether the firing of an NFL player for his political protests would violate the player’s constitutional right to free speech. Finally, Part III discusses whether the firing—or not hiring—of an NFL player for his political protests would violate the player’s rights under the terms of the league’s collective bargaining agreement

The 2008 Protests in Tibet : Main Facts & Analysis

Preprin

Protests and Reputation

Protests take place for a variety of reasons. In this paper we focus on protests that have a well defined objective, that is in conflict with the objectives of the government. Hence the success or failure of a protest movement depends crucially on how the government responds. We assume that government types are private information so that governments have an interest in building a reputation to deter protestors. We extend the standard reputation framework to one where potential protesters in the domestic jurisdiction are competing in a common market with protestors of a foreign jurisdiction, resulting in a situation where domestic governments care about the decisions of foreign governments. We derive conditions under which an equilibrium with "contagion" in protests might exist : protests that start in one jurisdiction spread to others. Finally we use our results to interpret the Fuel tax protests in France and England that took place in 2000 as well as the three successive pro-democracy revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in 2003-05.

An Immigrant, Not a Worker: Depiction of the 2006 ‘Day without an Immigrant’ Protests in Printed Media of the United States

writing about the Day Without an Immigrant (DWI) Protests within the year of the 2006 protests are analyzed in order to understand narratives on labor activism of documented and undocumented immigrants in the United States. DWI protests marked an anticipated ‘turning point\u27 in collective action among immigrant workers in the United States. Content analysis was employed to ascertain the portrayal of the protesters by a variety of print media sources. Both univariate and multivariate procedures utilized find that charged rhetoric of racialized anti-immigrant sentiment is present in most sources regardless of the ‘political leaning\u27 of the press, reaffirming the status of ‘other\u27 to both documented and undocumented migrants in the United States in the present day. Protesters ultimately were not seen as workers, but solely as immigrants. The findings illustrate the continued marginalization and racialization of more recent immigrant workers in the United States

Leave Your Guns at Home: The Constitutionality of a Prohibition on Carrying Firearms at Political Demonstrations

Armed protest has long been a tool of American political groups. Neo-Nazis, socialists, fascists, antifascists, the Black Panthers, neo-Confederates, and others have all taken up arms not necessarily to do violence, but to do politics. But such protests always risk rending a violent hole in our social fabric. If war is politics by other means, armed protests erase the distinction. This Note argues that the Constitution’s relevant guarantees of individual rights—the First and Second Amendments—do not include a constitutional right to armed protest. With respect to free speech, it is unlikely that current doctrine would cover armed protests. But, considering ongoing First Amendment expansion, this Note argues for a categorical exclusion of guns, and perhaps other express constitutional guarantees, from expressive conduct doctrine. As for the Second Amendment, armed protest is not within the historically understood scope of the right to keep and bear arms. More importantly, though, Heller’s “sensitive places” exception recognizes a fundamental reality about the relationship between the First and Second Amendments: the Second Amendment must cede certain arenas—churches, government buildings, schools, theaters, protests, and the like—to the First. Instruments of violence cannot be permitted to distort outcomes in the marketplace of ideas

Heroes of Berlin Wall Struggle

When the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, on Nov. 9, 1989, symbolically signaling the end of the Cold War, it was no surprise that many credited President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for bringing it down. But the true heroes behind the fall of the Berlin Wall are those Eastern Europeans whose protests and political pressure started chipping away at the wall years before. East German citizens from a variety of political backgrounds and occupations risked their freedom in protests against communist policies and one-party rule in what they called the peaceful revolution. [excerpt