The Missouri lawmaker that helped introduce a bill that would penalize student-athletes who participate protests has withdrawn the legislation.
According to The Huffington Post, State Reps. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville) and Kurt Bahr (R-O'Fallon) introduced House Bill 1743 to revoke the scholarship of any student-athlete that boycotts a game as part of a protest. The bill would have also subjected coaches whose players protested to penalization.
The University of Missouri football team pledged to boycott team activities as long as a graduate student named Jonathan Butler remained on hunger strike. The boycott, which head coach Gary Pinkel supported, would have cost the school $1 million per their contract to play BYU.
Butler was calling for UM system president Tim Wolfe's resignation over his perceived indifference toward racist activity on campus, a demonstration that received little attention until the football team got involved. Wolfe resigned the next day.
Brattin told CBS Sports the decision was a "knee jerk reaction" and stated UM "should have stood against this anarchy that happened with this protest." Critics of the bill argued that Brattin and Bahr were further turning student-athletes into employees while the sport's governing body will not allow them any benefits that would come with such a distinction.
"They want to call us student-athletes, but they keep us out of the student part of it," Ian Simon, a team captain that helped organize the team's involvement in Butler's protest, told The Columbia Missourian. "I'm more than just a football player... As soon as we're done playing at the University of Missouri, the University of Missouri does not care about us anymore. We are not their responsibility... Our sport is just a small part of who we are."
