Portside

NYPD twits; Creationists' heads explode; Public school Bible curriculum; Goodbye Columbus; Buffalo Jills pay back the Bills; What Americans really think about inequality

It takes an enormous amount of chutzpah for Fitzgerald to so strenuously oppose the efforts of his players to have a seat at the table when he is making $2.2 million per year and received a $2.5 million loan from the school upon signing his most recent contract. Yet Fitzgerald's stance is not only distasteful. It may be illegal.

The broader point of Ohr’s ruling is that Northwestern’s scholarship football players really do work for pay. They are recruited largely for their football abilities; they spend an inordinate amount of time on their sport; they’re rewarded with valuable scholarships, which can be canceled; they’re subject to special rules other students aren’t; and their labor is clearly valuable to the school, which brings in millions of dollars in football-related profits.

The Northwestern University football team’s struggle to form a union raises the question of what it means to be a worker.

For all the gay players that have played in the NFL, Michael Sam is the first to "live his truth" openly.

Claims by anonymous officials that Sam will bring negative PR to the NFL are functionally and morally indistinguishable from simple bigotry.

Doesn't the NFL Pay Taxes?; Haven't the Redskins Changed their Name Yet?; Scarlett Johansson Turns Her Back on Human Rights, Takes the $$ Instead; Irish Should Defend Undocumented Latinos; Bronco chooses Chomsky over NFL; Cheerios Family in New Ad

What the reaction to Richard Sherman showed me is that rooting is a fan’s privilege. And it’s a benefit players will never get to see.