The Dictatorship
Why the fight for civil rights is moving from the courthouse to courtside
As Republicans seek to systematically dismantle Black political power, the pushback is extending far beyond the courtrooms and statehouses where these fights typically occur.
This week, it reached the arenas and stadiums where college sports are played.
First, the Congressional Black Caucus announced its unanimous opposition to the SCORE Act, a major reform to college athletics backed by university and conference leaders for the NCAA, the SEC and the ACC.
In a statement, members argued they could not support athletic institutions that “remain silent” in the face of Republican moves to eliminate majority-Black congressional districts. According to recent reportsthe NCAA, SEC and ACC do not appear to have publicly responded to the redistricting controversy, a silence that has become central to criticism from the Congressional Black Caucus and NAACP.
Then, the NAACP launched its “Out of Bounds” campaign, calling on Black athletes, potential recruits, families and fans to reconsider supporting universities in states aggressively moving to weaken Black political representation after the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais.
Taken together, the moves signal something larger than frustration. They reflect a growing consensus among Black leaders that neutrality from powerful institutions is not acceptable when democracy itself is under attack.
Conservatives predictably attacked the moves, casting student athletes as pawns in a political game, arguing that athletes would rather get a paycheck than stand in solidarity or just mocking the idea of playing somewhere other than a big southern college.
But young people have always been central to movements for democratic change in this country.
During the civil rights movement, students and children marched, sat in at lunch counters, filled jails and faced police dogs, fire hoses and violence in the streets of the South. Young people were not treated as too inexperienced or too uninformed to participate in democracy. They were often the moral force pushing the country to confront what older institutions were too comfortable tolerating.
That history matters now.
No one is demanding college athletes single-handedly save American democracy. The question is whether the people whose talent, labor and cultural power sustain these institutions are willing to recognize the leverage they already possess.
This is not about college sports being politicized. They already are. The question is where that political energy is being directed.
In the South especially, college football is not just entertainment. It is culture, money, political influence and state identity rolled into one. Governors campaign on the sidelines, state legislatures protect these programs like state assets and entire economies orbit around them.
And Black athletes are central to sustaining that political economy.
For years, universities and athletic conferences have wrapped themselves in the language of diversity, equity and opportunity. They have recruited Black athletes aggressively, celebratedBlack excellence on Saturdays and profited from Black visibility, labor and culture.
But when the rights of Black voters to choose their own representatives are being weakened, those same institutions suddenly become silent.
The CBC and the NAACP are just calling attention to that inaction. Their mission is to make it politically and economically costly for college athletic institutions to stand on the sidelines. Because this is bigger than sports.
When politicians manipulate maps to dilute communities where political participation threatens their power, democracy itself starts to rot from the inside out. Silence is not neutrality; it is standing by the oppressor.
History has already taught us that lesson.
The collapse of Reconstruction was not sustained by violent extremists alone. It was sustained by respectable institutions that convinced themselves silence was the safer course.
Business leaders prioritized economic stability over democratic equality. Universities accommodated themselves to segregationist power structures. Newspapers sanitized democratic backsliding as mere political disagreement. Northern political elites grew tired of the political cost of defending Black citizenship.
Too many institutions decided protecting multiracial democracy was simply no longer worth the effort and learned to make peace with oppression.
This is why the current moment feels so dangerous to me. Because once again, America is watching institutions attempt to distance themselves from a democratic crisis unfolding directly around them.
The burden of defending democracy cannot continue falling solely on the communities most targeted by democratic erosion. Our democracy is not some DEI initiative that can be pulled when it’s inconvenient.
Attacks on Black political power rarely remain confined to Black communities.
History shows attacks on Black political power rarely remain confined to Black communities. Again and again, America has used race as the testing ground for democratic rollback — from voter suppression to gerrymandering to weakened federal protections — before expanding those tactics to the rest of the country.
That is why this moment matters beyond any one district, state or community. The voters’ ability to choose representatives of their choice is the foundation to democratic self-governance. Once that principle becomes negotiable for some Americans, it becomes vulnerable for everyone.
The NAACP and Congressional Black Caucus are not simply asking institutions to issue another statement about diversity.
They are testing whether the people who built these athletic empires are willing to use their own leverage: athletes and their families; alumni, fans and boosters; occasional viewers and allies alike.
Institutions rarely move simply because they are asked nicely. This campaign is attempting to make silence expensive.
And perhaps that is the deeper message of this moment. The coming fight will not just be confined to politics, or even to sports. Democracy will survive when neutrality in the face of oppression becomes untenable for everyone.
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Symone D. Sanders Townsend is a co-host of “The Weeknight,” which airs Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MS NOW.