• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    415 hours ago

    It’s a matter of numbers. The bosses always pretend they’ll just fire people for defiance, but if whole teams strike they don’t really have a way to pull that off without grievously harming their business. (And while the NCAA is itself a nonprofit, it definitely has business interests.)

    It’s not fair, but solidarity and social resistance is going to involve good people taking risks when they could have just gone along instead. That’s the whole meaning of the ‘First they came for’ poem.

    • Flying Squid
      link
      16 hours ago

      I’m afraid that is not how scholarships work. They are contracts. If you do not fulfill your contract, the scholarship is taken away from you.

      These women either keep playing with the team or lose their scholarship and possibly lose their only way of paying for college. You expecting them to give up college or go deeper into student loan debts so that they can protest an injustice is an injustice to them. All you are suggesting is that even more people get hurt by this than are already hurt by it.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        12 hours ago

        What do you think employment is? Strikes aren’t about rules and contracts, they’re about power. You don’t get fired because at a certain critical mass, the bosses can’t run their business without you.

        And students have been risking their scholarships, enrollment, and even visas for Palestine all year. Resistance and moral stands aren’t without personal risk.

        • Flying Squid
          link
          02 hours ago

          I think employment is something they won’t get if they don’t finish college.

          What is your personal risk in this? Because it’s all well and good to expect other people to make sacrifices you will never have to make.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            12 hours ago

            If my profession was something the NCAA cared about, I would absolutely be rallying my coworkers to take action.

            There’s nothing easy about striking or protesting, and there will be some people who simply can’t, but you seem to just not believe in resistance at all. There is no no-risk path, but “First They Came” isn’t a message about just hiding out because standing up for someone else is risky.

            • Flying Squid
              link
              02 hours ago

              Again, it’s all well and good for you to tell other people to take risks you don’t have to take.

              What risks are you taking right now?