Calling on Black College Athletes to Boycott PWIs Is Grasping at Straws
Graphic by Habib Salami.
OP-ED
BY RANN MILLER | Pressing Forward
Black “leaders” have to stop calling on Black collegiate athletes to boycott playing sports whenever white people choose to be racist.
It’s weak to expect young people to bear the burden of sacrifice against anti-Black racism when we (the adults) haven’t.
As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, the NAACP has called for a Black athlete boycott of PWIs (predominantly white [collegiate] institutions) in GOP-led states engaged in congressional redistricting to dilute Black voting and political power. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has backed the boycott.
I understand why the call was made for Black collegiate players to do this. In 2015, Tim Wolfe, then president of the University of Missouri, resigned following a boycott by the Tigers football team, an SEC school.
Black student groups had complained that Wolfe was unresponsive to racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white main campus of the state’s four-college system, but it was when the football players (the majority of whom were Black) said they would not play football until Wolfe resigned and their list of demands was met.
In 2025, the University of Missouri’s sports valuation was $700 million, the 31st-highest valuation. The football team is a big part of that. Needless to say, the university’s trustees did not want to see a loss in their revenue.
For sure, Black collegiate athletes have power. But why is it up to them to tackle racist governors and state legislatures when the NAACP failed to call on Black NFL players to boycott the NFL when Colin Kaepernick was colluded against? Only Atlanta’s NAACP branch called for a boycott. The national NAACP only demanded a meeting with Roger Goodell to discuss protecting players’ First Amendment rights.
It’s a meeting they never got. They met with the NFL in 2022, along with the National Action Network, the National Urban League, and others, to discuss the lack of Black head coaches in the NFL.
Currently, there are only three Black head coaches in the NFL. So much for that meeting. The NAACP didn’t call for a massive boycott of the NFL involving Black players and fans.
We (Black folk) didn’t demand a boycott ourselves, but I digress. The NAACP called out the NFL for its treatment of Kaepernick, but that’s all. … so call on Black college athletes to boycott playing at PWIs?
Why must they bear the burden of denying themselves and their families the financial benefits of their talents that can change their lives—now in college with the advent of NIL payments—when the masses of Black people are only required to not spend their money versus sacrificing their paychecks? Why are we making the Black collegiate labor class shoulder the financial burden that the masses of Black people cannot or will not? Traditionally, a boycott doesn’t cost you a paycheck.
When folks boycott an institution, they refuse to do business with it, which costs the institution money. Boycotting will make life inconvenient for the boycotting group, but it won’t take money out of their pockets (directly). But for Black college players, if they were to go through with this boycott, they’d lose money – their NIL deals, which are payments for their labor.
That’s not a boycott. That’s a strike, and Black folks may not want to hear this, but workers strike for better working conditions and higher pay. If you want Black college athletes to strike on behalf of voting rights, they should have an alternative way to earn the money they’re denying on behalf of the cause.
Going to an HBCU or another PWI is an option, but they’re not as viable as people think. 4 and 5-star Black players will likely push out other Black players who aren’t elite talents, especially at HBCUs, and where would that leave those players? Additionally, many HBCUs, which are historically underfunded, are subject to the rule of the GOP-led states in which they are located.
That means that if Black players did defect from SEC, ACC, and Big12 schools, those HBCUs are subject to retaliation in the form of defunding, threatening HBCUs existence altogether.
…and, do we really think PWIs in Democratic led states really care about Black students?
A boycott of PWIs in GOP-led states can’t be led by anyone other than the athletes themselves. Where groups like the NAACP can help is by leveraging their power and influence to create a new Black-led institution to house college athletics for Black collegiate athletes and anyone else who wants to play.
The institution must be separate from any college (HBCU specifically) so as not to open them up to any retaliatory action from white supremacists in government. Black dollars must be pulled together from donors willing to support such an institution.
Empowering Black college athletes is its own matter that deserves its own attention and initiative among the masses to support Black youth. The NAACP should support such an initiative.
Asking Black college athletes to boycott playing to save Black voting rights isn’t a strategy. It is grasping at straws. A strategy is a plan to antagonize the oppressor, not refuse to sit at his table.
A strategy requires the audacity to return fire with fire. What the Supreme Court and GOP-led states have done is violence against Black people. What are we willing to do? The NAACP is only willing to put young Black people on the front lines and demand nothing of anyone else.
That’s violence too: the self-inflicted kind… and it won’t work.
BIO: Rann Miller is a writer, author, and educator. A graduate of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Rann teaches AP United States History, is the author of Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids, and is an opinion columnist, featured in various news outlets exploring the intersections of race, education, politics, culture and history. You can follow on “X” @RealRannMiller, on IG, and TikTok @realrannmiller.
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