Dear members of UNE and the Public Relations department,

My name is Kyle, I am a public relations consultant. I am here today to talk to you about the uprising conflict we are beginning to face between our athletes and our schools educational intuition. Here at UNE we are supposedly dedicated to free inquiry of students and to exchange point of views amongst the head officials all the way down to the students. In result, this statement made by the school, athletes have started to protest during the national anthem using political statements such as raising a fist or in some cases, taking a knee during the national anthem. Now, what happens when students participate in these protests it raises the question of will this affect our reputation as a school and if it could have an impact on the enrollment, retention and operating budgets in uncertain ways. That is why I am here to give you some advice on how to balance out the effect of students protesting to help make sure these downfalls won’t happen. If we allow the students to protest  this issue by raising a fist I believe it would do a lot more damage to the schools reputations as much as an athlete kneeling at a game during the national anthem.
In recent years, protests have become more popular in sports such as the NFL and the NBA. The most popular protests yet has been the movement to stand up to injustice and unnecessary police killings. The first professional athlete that really put a spotlight on this issue was 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick. When Colin took the first knee in 2016, it stunned many Americans in a few ways, support, anger, and confusion where just a few of the categories that the american people fell into once seeing this taking place. But, Colin started a trend that ultimately led, many other players from different teams to participate. Unfortunately, many viewers were disgusted by his acts of disrespecting  the veterans and flag by kneeling during the anthem. This caused many NFL viewers to even stop watching games. Later that season, the entire Pittsburgh Steelers team did not come out for the national anthem. This created a lot of controversy in the program which ultimately resulted in the team never doing that again. But, when audiences began to understand the true meaning behind the protests it brought some angry americans back on their feet. Unfortunately, even with the true message being sent out there are people who still believe kneeling isn’t the right thing to do because s an american, to stand, is to show a sign of respect. This standing during the anthem is to give respect for not just the country but the veterans and soldiers who have died for our freedom. So, when these acts are taken place it creates two sides of the image of America and sports. One side feels politics don’t have a place in sports and there other support the awareness the athletes are spreading. Like it whether or not, it will always cause these two arguments to collide.