A Defense for College Athlete's Free Speech

I recently read an article about an incident of First Amendment rights, specifically those of freedom of speech, being violated. This particular article was published in January of 2018, so this happened not that long ago, and told of a university violating the First Amendment rights of one of its student athletes.

The student's name is Donald De La Haye, and he was a football player for the University of Central Florida (UCF). He received an athletic scholarship, which he said is the only thing that allowed him to attend the university. Donald, like most teens and young adults these days, is an avid user of social media. He had a rather large following on Instagram and YouTube, with over ten thousand YouTube subscribers. He posts his own content regularly about his life and what it's like being a college student. These videos are monetized, meaning that YouTube essentially pays Donald for uploading his original content. UCF, however, doesn't like that he gets paid for uploading videos to YouTube.

According to the University of Central Florida, this violates NCAA by-law 12.4.4, which is part of a larger by-law which "limit[s] student expression, including when a student receives compensation in connection with the use of a student’s name, image, appearance, or physical attributes." The university then kicked Donald off the football team and rescinded his athletic scholarship.

The First Amendment states that all citizens have freedom of speech, and this right to freely express oneself should not be limited because that person decided to attend a university that adheres to the NCAA by-laws. I do believe there is something to be said about following rules, but when the rules begin to limit a person's freedom of speech, I believe that particular rule should be rethought. Being represented by the Goldwater Institute, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Roetzel & Andress, LPA, Donald has asked the University of Central Florida to undo its unlawful decision by restoring his scholarship. The court case is De La Haye v. Hitt.