As the NFL is facing the NFL Players Association’s potential legal challenge to the new national anthem policy, the league should be concerned at least a little bit about the possibility that a lawsuit may be filed based on the Fits Amendment.
As said by Andy Grimm from the Chicago Sun-Times, a lawsuit filed by the Packers fan in the year 2017 who had purchased the Bears season ticket, mat result in a First Amendment-based attack filed by the national anthem policy.
Russell Beckham says that the Bears had violated his First Amendment rights by not letting him walk the sidelines when he was wearing the Packers colors during a pregame event held for season ticket holders in the year 22016. In his lawsuit, Beckham claims that he has survived a preliminary effort by the Bears who wanted to throw the case out of the court.
To win the lawsuit, Beckham will have to ultimately show that the Chicago Part District, who is the owner of Soldier Field, had a role to play in the Bears’ decision not to let Beckham wear the Packers gear in the sidelines. This eventually means that the NFL players will have to show that the local stadium authorities had a role in the rule that requires players to stand for the national anthem.
Ultimately, the anthem based fight would play out in the entire publicly funded stadium to determine whether there is any plausible basis for arguing that private employers cannot infringe upon First Amendment rights in an inherently public setting. The current lawsuit filed by Beckham, if the NFLPA were to join it may be able to provide the test case. And it looks like Beckham seems to be quite interested in partnering with the NFLPA.
