Locker Room Rap Breaching Licensing Agreements Leads to Suspension of Football Activities at FAMU
I have been writing for the last two years or so about the interaction between contracts rights and First Amendment rights. There are links to lots of posts starting with this one. I have an article forthcoming on the case from 2021 in which SCOTUS found that a middle school could not discipline a cheerleader who posted a Snap that read “fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.”
The artist in question is Real Boston Richey. He appears in the video, among other places, in the FAMU football team’s locker room. He is shown wearing FAMU gear, including football helmets, and he is surrounded by team members, also wearing FAMU gear. The Rapper performed at FAMU’s homecoming game last season, so there seems to be a genuine bond there. It is unknown how he and his crew gained access to FAMU’s facilities for the purpose of recording the video. FAMU notes that the unauthorized use of apparel and logos violates licensing agreements.
In suspending all football activities, Coach Simmons expressed his support for free speech but said that the language in the video “is not consistent with FAMU’s core values, principles and beliefs.” That’s a bit hard to square with FAMU’s invitation to Richey to perform at homecoming. Coach Simmons said of his athletes, “They will all learn from this mishap and we will continue to work hard every day to become the best version of ourselves and continue to make Rattler Nation proud.” Sure.
The video is no longer viewable, as far as I can tell, but you can listen to the song here. You can find the lyrics to the song here. I don’t have the expertise to comment on the their qualities, but it seems understandable that FAMU would not want to be associated with the rap’s message, at least if one associates the message of the song with the words as written.
I assume that the students who join college football teams enter into agreements that include limitations on their rights of free expression. FAMU is a state university, so there ought to be First Amendment protections that the athletes cannot bargain away. That said, the cheerleader in the SCOTUS case signed an agreement in which she promised not to make disparaging comments about her school or cheerleading on social media, and then she proceeded to do that very thing. SCOTUS said that the school could not discipline her in any way consistent with the First Amendment.
In this case, it seems like there was non-expressive conduct that could be punished consistent with the First Amendment. There was unauthorized access to FAMU’s facilities. There were the licensing violations. But some of those pertain only to Real Boston Richey and his crew, and some of those pertain to the individual students who presumably allowed him into the locker room and joined him in the music video. Suspending all football activities seems to punish student athletes who had no involvement. Perhaps for that reason, among others, the suspension was lifted on July 24th. According to 
Jim Henry, reporting in the Tallahassee Democrat, no information regarding player discipline has been made public, but the investigation is ongoing.