The energy at the Mecca just took a sharp turn. Howard University is switching up the rules on how its athletes handle the national anthem, and the new play has the whole campus talking. According to a report first broken by campus newspaper The Hilltop, the university has dropped a new game-day protocol that basically says, “Stand up or stay in the locker room.” 

This rule was imposed  right after the women’s basketball team took a knee during the pregame ceremonies against the United States Military Academy back on Dec. 29. The Lady Bison haven't been shy about their stance; they’ve been kneeling at every single game since 2020 to protest police brutality and social injustice. But after the showdown with Army, things got real in the front office. Brian Davis, the associate head coach, confirmed that after some "thoughtful internal conversations," the department-wide expectation is now to keep the peace.

“Our program has been kneeling since COVID, especially when all the social justice things were happening,” Davis told the student paper. He made it clear that while they have family in the military and didn’t mean to disrespect anyone, the school wants to avoid “bad light.” Now, for the rest of the season, the team will just stay in the locker room during the anthem—home and away.

Athletics VP Kery Davis claims the move is all about balancing "student expression" with "mutual respect," but on a campus built on the backs of revolutionary leaders like Brown and Gittens, the silence in the arena is speaking volumes. Howard has a long history of standing up by sitting down—from the 1968 takeovers to the 2016 cheerleaders who joined the Kaepernick movement—and this new policy is definitely stirring up the ghosts of activism past.