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Today: Dana Altman to introduce Harry Edwards at sports and free speech event

4PM today at the Alumni Center. The panelists will include former journalism dean and noted transparency opponent Tim Gleason – currently making ~$100K a year off the unpaid labor of UO’s student-athletes as UO’s NCAA “Faculty” Athletics Representative – and Prof Curtis Austin (History).

Austin was the most interesting speaker at Pres Schill’s denaming town hall last quarter, so I’m hoping someone will attend this and send a report – I’ve got a conflict of commitment.

Around the O has the story here:

On May 8, the Lundquist College of Business’ Warsaw Sports Marketing Center and the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics will host a day of discussion and dialogue around the history and legacy of activism in sports, the effects of activism on the business ecosystem around sport, and the way athletes today view their opportunities and responsibilities.

Activism within sport remains a lightning rod for controversy due to its high-profile nature. Topics ranging from the Black Lives Matter movement to National Anthem protests, gender-inclusive restrooms and silenced sexual violence have dominated the headlines this past year.

Harry Edwards — the architect of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, which led to the Black Power salute protest by two African-American athletes at the 1968 Summer Olympics — will deliver the keynote address in the Ford Alumni Center’s Giustina Ballroom at 4 p.m.

Edwards is a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. The New York Times has said of Edwards that “no other single figure in sports has done as much to make the country aware that the problems of the larger culture are recapitulated in sports.”

Just kidding about Dana Altman though. His position on free speech by unpaid student-athletes is well known, and in complete opposition to Prof Edwards’s life work:

12/10/2014: Coach Dana Altman thinks National Anthem is the wrong time to protest racism

As the Oregonian explains, our fool of a basketball coach thinks he owns those players. They shouldn’t protest when he’s trying to collect his $2M paycheck, off their free labor. Fortunately we’ve still got people who hear someone sing “O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave” and actually understand what it means.

Want to ask the players what they think? No. Duck AD Rob Mullens and his PR guy Craig Pintens have a rule about players talking to reporters without permission, and “Benjamin and Bell have not been made available to comment.”

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