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McCrory calls ECU band members’ protest ‘inappropriate’

Gov. Pat McCrory has weighed in on the silent protest last Saturday at East Carolina University, where 19 members of the Marching Pirates band knelt during the national anthem.

In videos of TV interviews distributed by McCrory’s re-election campaign, the governor called the band members’ kneeling protest “extremely inappropriate.”

“They have every right to express their First Amendment rights outside the stadium,” he said.

McCrory suggested that the band members were running afoul of the rules when they made a statement on the football field in solidarity with demonstrations nationally against police shootings of African-Americans.

“There are rules and guidelines in our society, and when you put on the uniform of a band you have to follow the rules and guidelines of that uniform,” McCrory added. “I wonder if we had every member of every band start going, ‘I’ve got a political opinion,’ and they just walk away from the performance and hold up a sign.’

Such demonstrations have spread from the NFL to college games in recent weeks, but the ECU protest has elicited a particularly emotional response. Band members had to have a police ? from the game on Oct. 1 when some fans spit on the members or threw things at them.

On the day of the game, the new chancellor, Cecil Staton, issued a statement saying he understood the disappointment of some fans, but emphasized that civil discourse “part of our ECU creed.” He said the university would defend students’ constitutional right to free speech.

Then two days later, the band director and two other university officials told the band members such protests in the future would not be tolerated. A Fayetteville radio station refused to broadcast this weekend’s ECU football game as a protest of the original protest, and a marketing professor pledged to bring her gun to campus to assert her Second Amendment rights.

In the end, the faculty member, Tracy Tuten, said she did not bring a gun to campus because she didn’t want to risk being charged with a felony. She said she wanted to carry a gun because she felt unsafe after having been stalked by a student in the past.

Staton, a former Republican state senator in Georgia who took the helm at ECU on July 1, emailed the campus late Thursday in an attempt to calm the situation. Saying it was “a challenging, but wonderful time” to lead the university, Staton walked a fine line between promising freedom of expression for students while also explaining that the university would put limits on when and where protests take place.

He wrote: “To our students, let me be perfectly clear: you have the right to express yourselves peacefully and responsibly, and the right to expect to do so without fear of intimidation or violence. I will not tolerate the mistreatment of any student, and anyone who perpetrates such mistreatment will be dealt with swiftly.

“However, when necessary, I will also ensure that public safety is preserved and maintained for the benefit of all who are a part of our campus. The university has a responsibility, if necessary, to place reasonable constraints on the time, the place and the manner of expression or conduct, but within those constraints, the university respects and will defend that right.”

Staton said the situation at ECU is no different than those at other universities around the country. “We are an imperfect campus in an imperfect society,” he said, and asked everyone to resolve differences peacefully.

ECU’s hometown, Greenville, is in a military friendly part of North Carolina, and two band members’ held a U.S. flag during the game last weekend as a sort of counterbalance to the students who kneeled. Staton, while expressing respect for the First Amendment, pointed out “the deep relationship our university has with the military and the men and women who serve and have served.”

Tuten, the faculty member, posted an on her website under the heading #AllRightsMatter. “We have First Amendment rights because of the sacrifices made by those who defended and won this country’s freedom. We also have other rights,” she wrote. “While I support the spirit of Dr. Staton’s message, I am disheartened that only the First Amendment is mentioned in his letter.”

ECU is due to play the University of South Florida in Tampa on Saturday, but has a home game Oct. 13 with Navy. All eyes will be on the band at that Thursday night game.

Meanwhile, ECU’s Board of Trustees has scheduled a special meeting on Tuesday. It’s unclear whether the protest prompted the meeting.