NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin told a group of senators the league is supporting bipartisan efforts on criminal justice reform, showing that the NFL is becoming involved with concerns of players who have been taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem during the past two seasons.
Goodell and Baldwin signed a letter to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and others voicing the league’s “full support” for the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2017, saying the bill would “address many of the issues on which our players have worked to raise awareness of over the last two seasons.”
“This bill seeks to improve public safety, increase rehabilitation and strengthen families,” the letter said. “If enacted, it would be a positive next step in our collective efforts to move our nation forward.”
The legislation is a reintroduction of a 2015 bill that would lower mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, but takes a tougher stance on other crimes such as domestic violence.
On Monday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker sent a letter to the NFL asking the league to stop the kneeling protests and to use its voice to raise the issue of domestic violence, an issue the NFL is familiar with after the Ray Rice scandal, in which the running back was caught on tape striking his wife in an elevator. The incident sparked nationwide outrage and criticism that the league hadn’t punished Rice harshly enough before the video’s release.
“My request is simple: Stand for the American flag and the national anthem out of respect for those who risk their lives for our freedoms, and then take a stand against domestic violence to keep American families safe,” Walker, a Republican, wrote to Goodell and NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith.
When former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling for the national anthem during the 2016 football season, his original protest dealt with racial discrimination, particularly as it related to issues of policing and criminal justice.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said in 2016. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
However, after President Trump reignited the issue this year, the kneeling protests spread widely through the league and sometimes seemed to be as much of a protest against the president as a stance against racial inequalities in the criminal justice system.
Kaepernick, meanwhile, has filed a suit against NFL team owners. He says the league and the owners “have colluded to deprive Mr. Kaepernick of employment rights in retaliation for Mr. Kaepernick’s leadership and advocacy for equality and social justice and his bringing awareness to peculiar institutions still undermining racial equality in the United States.”
