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You Can’t Cheer That: NCAA Division I FBS Stadium Speech Policies and the First Amendment

Neal Ternes & Monyae Williamson-Gourley

Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport2025https://doi.org/10.18060/29179article
ABDC C
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Fan behavior at college sporting events has long been a concern for administrators. Particularly, fan speech—including inappropriate signs, vulgar cheers, and rude images on clothing—has proven difficult for policymakers to address. Yet, as previous scholarship has demonstrated, speech policies at public university spaces intending to curtail such behavior frequently violate the First Amendment protections of students and spectators (see, e.g., Calvert & Richards, 2004; Ulian, 2016). Using a comparative analysis of speech policies published on the athletic department websites for every public university in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), we determined that 94 of the 102 evaluated institutions had speech codes for one or more of their sports facilities that could be used to violate the First Amendment rights of spectators. We discuss the implications of such policies for potential litigation against universities and offer recommendations for crafting better policies for fan behavior at university athletic events.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.18060/29179

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{neal2025,
  title        = {{You Can’t Cheer That: NCAA Division I FBS Stadium Speech Policies and the First Amendment}},
  author       = {Neal Ternes & Monyae Williamson-Gourley},
  journal      = {Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.18060/29179},
}

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You Can’t Cheer That: NCAA Division I FBS Stadium Speech Policies and the First Amendment

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.