U. Oklahoma coaches claim they can discipline players for their politics

[PeteS in CA]

U. Oklahoma coaches claim they can discipline players for their politics

https://www.thecollegefix.com/u-oklahoma-coaches-claim-they-can-discipline-players-for-their-politics/

Two women’s volleyball coaches at the University of Oklahoma argue in a legal motion that they have the right to discipline players for their political beliefs.

Player Kylee McLaughlin sued coaches Lindsey and Kyle Walton along with the OU Board of Regents earlier this year, alleging “she had been excluded from the team […] over her politically conservative views.”

The OU Daily reported that McLaughlin, the OU team captain and first team All-Big 12 selection in 2018 and 2019, had made comments that “at least one” of her teammates considered “racist” following a team viewing of the Netflix documentary “13th.”

McLaughlin was told to attend a follow-up discussion on the issue — mass incarceration of black Americans — which she did.

Later, after McLaughlin had tweeted out her disagreement (a skull and crossbones and laughing clown emojis) at the University of Texas’s possible dropping of its school song “The Eyes of Texas,” Lindsey Walton “urg[ed] her to delete [the] tweet.” ...

[mountaineer]

Would make for an interesting First Amendment case.

[PeteS in CA]

Coaches claim conservative volleyball player is 'public figure' to defeat her First Amendment suit

https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/coaches-claim-conservative-volleyball-player-public-figure-defeat-her-first

A college volleyball player branded a racist and pressured by her coaches to leave the team cannot sue them for First Amendment violations because she's a public figure, according to a novel legal defense raised last week.

University of Oklahoma coaches Lindsey Gray-Walton and Kyle Walton said Kylee McLaughlin targeted them with a "strategic lawsuit against public participation" in violation of the state's anti-SLAPP law.

It's the married couple's second motion to dismiss the federal case, but the first to invoke the Oklahoma Citizens Participation Act. McLaughlin is also suing the university for violating Oklahoma law protecting freedom of expression for public university students and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The novel frivolity of this "defense" demonstrate the weakness of the defendants' case.

[mountaineer]

Coaches claim conservative volleyball player is 'public figure' to defeat her First Amendment suit

The novel frivolity of this "defense" demonstrate the weakness of the defendants' case.

Incredible. No one in America - except this girl's family - could have recognized her name as a collegiate athlete. Public figure, really? About the only "public figure" volleyballers are a handful of Olympians, past and present.

 I sincerely hope this defense fails resoundingly.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

My sister in Wichita Falls once told me "Do you feel the wind blowing from the south?  It is because Oklahoma sucks."