On April 25, of this year, TMZ Sports released a recording of a conversation between Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and a female friend. In the recording from September 2013, a man confirmed to be Sterling was irritated over a photo the woman had posted on Instagram, in which she posed with Basketball Hall of Fame player Magic Johnson.
Sterling was banned from the NBA for life and fined $2.5 million by the league after the recordings were made public. That incident played in the background over the past two months as we talked with scholars and citizens for this project. It came up time and time again. So much so, we wanted to explore the role civility has with this nation’s sports culture.
The NYU Sports and Society program, headed by New York University Professor Arthur Miller, issued a white paper earlier this year examining the phenomenon of bullying and other intolerant behavior in sports, and proposing a comprehensive range of initiatives focused on youth athletics to combat them. Miller, one of the nation’s most distinguished law professors, says there are many parallels between civility and sports.
Agreeing to Disagree: Civility in Public Discourse is funded in part by MASS Humanities.
