The University of Iowa’s men’s basketball team committed a jersey foul in their first round March Madness clash against the Richmond Spiders on Thursday.
Mixed in with their standard black and gold color scheme was the word “Equality” on their backs, placed below their numbers and last names. It is an obvious reference to social justice messaging. Iowa, however, is not one of the most popular teams that uses uniforms for this purpose.
These Hawkeyes began this project in the 2020-2021 seasons when America was going through social and political turmoil. Messages such as “Peace,” “Love” and “Equality” donned the front of their warm up jerseys, and coaches wore “Anti-Racism” and “Anti-Hate” pins with their suits.
Luka Garza, a former power forward who was awarded the Naismith Player Award for the year at the conclusion of the last season, greatly supported the effort.
“Luka was one of the main guys that wanted to get this started with us,” then-junior Joe Wieskamp said. “I think having equality on the back of our jersey is a good simple word that means a lot and sends a powerful message.”
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Wieskamp may be half-right. The country needs to strive towards equality constantly. After all, we can’t be a Republic that stands for “liberty and justice for all” without striving for equality. But the problem with equality according to the social justice movement is that it isn’t really striving for equality at all.
Advocates for social justice believe black people are continually oppressed. Many social justice advocates believe that black people are constantly oppressed and want to help them achieve equality in society.
Even worse is the belief that white people, many of whom feel guilty about the “sins,” of their ancestors’, are doing good by promoting these messages, such as the Hawkeyes. They are promoting messages which are in themselves admirable but have social justice undertones.
We won’t have to be seeing this propaganda from the Hawkeyes for the rest of the season, though. The Big 10 conference champions were defeated by the Spiders, which was 67 to63 on Thursday in Buffalo.
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