Milligan graduate Caleb Perhne interviewed Senator Jon Lundberg before the Tennessee Senate Education Committee meeting Feb. 24 to discuss the senator’s view on the ETSU Men’s Basketball Team’s protest during the National Anthem. During Perhne’s interview, Sen. Lundberg said that protesting during the National Anthem “isn’t appropriate”.
The team knelt during the National Anthem before their game on Feb. 15 which resulted in a letter signed on Feb. 22 by Tennessee’s 27 Republican senators, asking state universities to prohibit protests during the National Anthem. Protestors marched in support of the team in the days leading up to the Feb. 24 committee meeting.
Perhne was assigned to report ETSU’s budget hearing at the meeting, but Sen. Lundberg (Bristol) and Sen. Crowe (Johnson City) said they were going to ask ETSU President, Dr. Noland, about how he was going to address the kneeling situation. “I wanted to ask Senator Lundberg what he thought about the situation and get his view of things,” Perhne said, “and then some of the big things that folks were talking about that day was the constitutional issues with such a ban on campus.”
ETSU faculty and student organizations have made statements supporting the team’s actions as expressions protected under the First Amendment. The university’s Africana Studies program issued a statement: “Some people were angry. Others were hurt. Still others were enthusiastic about the young men exercising their 1st Amendment rights.”
In his interview with Sen. Lundberg, Perhne asked, ““Isn’t the role of the First Amendment to say that the government doesn’t get to decide what is appropriate and what isn’t?” Perhne said the only question that he had pre-planned going into the interview was, ‘is this a violation of the constitution?’
“The First Amendment is the thing that impacts what we as journalists do, and so you kind of have to know what is in there and what that says,” Perhne said, “especially where Milligan is a private school, I already had experienced the line between what a public school can do as a part of the state versus what a private school can do.”
Lawmakers said they would not use funding as leverage for state universities to implement the policy. The letter signed by Tennessee’s Republican senators said, “we do not condone any form of protest that could be viewed as disrespectful to our nation or flag while they are representing our state universities.” To Perhne’s point, as a private institution, Milligan’s relations to the state are different from that of a state-funded institution, which is bound by certain state standards.
The American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement regarding the issue: “Such policies would be unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that neither public schools nor legislators can force their definition of patriotism on students by requiring students to participate in compelled speech.”
The Feb. 24 committee meeting ran out of time before the issue was examined, but the senators discussed the issue with Dr. Noland during the meeting on March 3. Perhne said, “I’m assuming that Sen. Lundsberg has probably heard from folks as much or more than I’ve heard from folks and I feel like that has to, in one direction or another, influence him in whatever ends up happening.”
During the Senate Education Committee meeting on March 3, which coincidentally is National Anthem Day, Sen. Lundberg asked Dr. Noland if the team’s protest is a representation of ETSU. He said, “putting that knee down gave the bird to our flag, sir. And I don’t see a difference.” Dr. Noland said, “I deeply regret the feelings of pain and animosity that have emerged throughout the region.”
Headline photo: Caleb Perhne graduated from Milligan in 2018 and is now a multimedia journalist for WCYB News 5.