A Star Quarterback’s Unfiltered Posts Set Off Debate About Athletes’ Speech Rights

There is nothing unusual about a student posting a snarky comment about a presidential candidate or questioning a corporate sponsorship on social media. But when that student is a star athlete, the pressure to hit the delete key can be intense.

Just ask Josh Rosen, the starting quarterback at the University of California at Los Angeles. In April he posted a photo of himself on Instagram teeing off on a golf course owned by Donald J. Trump while wearing a baseball cap that insulted the Republican presidential candidate with a well-known four-letter expletive.

The Bruins head coach, Jim Mora, didn’t like that message any more than he approved of the one Mr. Rosen posted in May questioning UCLA’s record-setting $280-million apparel deal with Under Armour.

In a nod to the fact that college athletes aren’t paid and don’t benefit financially from such windfalls, the quarterback posted news of the contract with a sarcastic Instagram message: “We’re still amateurs though … Gotta love non-profits #NCAA.”

That post was quickly deleted, but the Trump one lived on, prompting Mr. Mora to admonish his quarterback to be more “socially responsible” in the future.

That advice, in turn, raised questions about the free-speech rights of athletes, particularly when they embrace liberal causes that might offend boosters or corporate sponsors.

“Coaches and athletic departments have struggled over the past five-plus years to come to grips with social media, which gives athletes lots of unfiltered access to express themselves,” says Richard M. Southall, an associate professor of sport and entertainment at the University of South Carolina at Columbia.

When Mr. Mora urged the quarterback to be “socially responsible,” Mr. Southall says, “I suspect this was doublespeak for protecting the university athletic-department brand.”

UCLA’s student-athlete code of conduct urges “extreme caution” in posting on social media. “While we encourage and fully support freedom of speech, expression, and association, we also ask that you be cognizant of the fact that you are representing yourself, UCLA, the athletic department, and your team every time you use social media,” it reads. “Always remember that inappropriate postings can follow you for life.”

Far from trying to silence athletes, UCLA coaches encourage them to find their voices, says Josh Rupprecht, an associate athletic director at the university.

“In doing so, we want them to be educated on what they actually speak out about and be able to back up their thoughts with intelligent discourse,” Mr. Rupprecht wrote in an email to The Chronicle.

3 Role Models, All Republican

In a radio interview in May, Mr. Mora said UCLA has a long history of athletes, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton, who were “socially aware and not afraid to rattle the cage a little bit.”

But times are different, players’ actions are hyper-analyzed today, and they should think before they speak, Mr. Mora said.

He said he had urged Mr. Rosen to take a page from the playbooks of Tom Brady, Troy Aikman, and Peyton Manning — all college quarterbacks who became standout professional athletes — and not Johnny Manziel, the Heisman Trophy winner whose NFL career has been plagued by allegations of substance abuse and domestic violence.

Mr. Mora didn’t mention that all three of the athletes he praised are committed Republicans (Mr. Brady has described Mr. Trump as a “good friend”) — a point that an editorial in the Los Angeles Times seized on.

The piece was written by Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College, and Kelly Candaele, a documentary producer and former trustee of the Los Angeles Community College District.

“Maybe Mora was merely trying to give Rosen some friendly career advice: Don’t alienate fans or jeopardize potentially lucrative commercial endorsements,” they wrote. “But Mora’s picks for positive role models fit into a disturbing pattern in college sports: Outspoken conservatives are admired and forthright liberals, not so much.”

Mr. Rosen did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

Mr. Mora also declined to comment, but his assistant, Mr. Rupprecht, says that the coach’s objection was to the use of profanity in the Trump post.

Others see an attempt to keep players from rocking the boat with corporate sponsors.

“One of the challenges student-athletes face is that while coaches want them to think critically on the field, they don’t want them to do the same critical thinking off the field,” says Emmett Gill, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Texas at San Antonio who also heads the nonprofit Student-Athletes Human Rights Project, which encourages activism by athletes.

“If coaches continue to try to silence student-athletes during a time when our nation is facing some very critical issues in terms of the presidential campaign and racial issues, they’re simply stifling their development,” he adds.

Many athletes become depressed when they feel that they lack any identity outside of sports, especially when their playing days are over, Mr. Gill says.

Protests like the ones that rocked the University of Missouri at Columbia last year, which helped topple the campus’s chancellor and the system’s president, demonstrate the power players can have beyond the field, he says. The players’ threat to boycott practices and at least one key game until the president stepped down amplified the demonstrations over complaints of racism on the campus.

“There’s a four-year window for many of these students to have an impact,” Mr. Gill says. “Now is the prime time for these athletes to comment on issues, and it would be socially irresponsible for them not to.”

Christian D. Green, who graduated from UCLA this spring and will start a master’s program in African-American studies this fall, says he and other campus activists have been frustrated in their efforts to get minority athletes to speak out about racism, police violence, and other issues. Some fear losing scholarships or leadership positions, he says.

“These athletes are making millions of dollars for the school, which doesn’t want them to say anything negative or controversial” that will hurt the UCLA brand or jeopardize their contracts, Mr. Green says. High-profile athletes like Mr. Rosen should be able to use their positions to influence others, not feel they need to hide from controversy, he adds.

Daron K. Roberts, founding director of the Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation at the University of Texas at Austin, agrees.

“In the past, student-athletes have been criticized for being unwilling to tackle social and political issues with their voice,” he wrote in an email.

When they speak out at places like Missouri and Northwestern University, where football players led an unsuccessful effort to unionize, they’re criticized for being on the wrong side of an issue, Mr. Roberts added.

“We should afford student-athletes with the same latitude in beliefs as we do other Americans,” he wrote.

Looking ahead to the fall, some predict that athletes might be tempted to weigh in during a raucous presidential campaign and lingering racial tensions over police shootings.

Mr. Southall isn’t holding his breath.

“I’m not optimistic that we’ll see a groundswell of social activism” by athletes, he says. “They’ve been taught for years to obey authority, and they’ve seen the response to athletes who speak out.”

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.