Missouri Rep. Rick Brattin doesn’t want a repeat of Missouri football players protesting

%{[ data-embed-type=”image” data-embed-id=”” data-embed-element=”aside” ]}%

The University of Missouri football team’s decision to go on strike last month if UM System president Tim Wolfe didn’t resign went down as one of the most important sports stories of the year.

Here’s a situation where university athletes, whose exploits in competition make other people very rich, were threatening to withhold their participation unless certain demands are met. In the case of MU, those demands were lockstep with other students upset with inaction over a series of racial incidents on campus that university leadership apparently struggled to handle. 

For Missouri Rep. Rick Brattin, the protest warrants legislative action to ensure that athletes keep their mouths shut and never risk his entertainment again. Brattin, a Cass County Republican, introduced a bill last Friday that calls for the revocation of scholarships from athletes who go, or threaten to go on strike. It would also lead to fines for any coach who lets his or her athletes work up enough nerve to chime in on a matter of campus concern.

Maybe Brattin is a stranger to the First Amendment and the protections it offers citizens (college athletes included) to engage in free speech and peaceful assembly. Wait, no he’s not. Brattin last year carried in the Missouri House a measure called the Campus Free Expression Act, which does exactly what the title implies by protecting free expression on college campuses so long as they don’t substantially disrupt the institution’s work.

So how does Brattin reconcile these two pieces of contradictory legislation that have his name associated with them? We asked, and we’ll update if he responds.

It probably won’t be a terribly busy year in the Missouri General Assembly, which leaves Brattin with enough time to think of political hijinks like this latest bill.