A right to jeer? Some sports teams are trying to limit how fans express themselves. Does that violate the First Amendment?

• Author: Potenza, Alessandra
• Position: SPORTS

Last February, at a North Carolina State men's basketball game against Florida State, two former players seated in the stands, Tom Gugliotta and Chris Corchiani, were ejected from the arena for loudly and bitterly protesting e referees' calls. Officials from both teams and fans seated nearby said neither of them used vulgarity or threatening words. Yet, at the request of a referee, they were approached by security officials and tossed from the game.

The episode, at a game hosted by a public university, raised questions that wouldn't have occurred to the Founding Fathers: Is a fan's protest a form of expression protected by the First Amendment? Do fans have the right to rail at referees or players as long as they don't run on the court or threaten anyone?

Howard Wasserman, a law professor at Florida International University who writes about fan behavior and the First Amendment, thinks fans do have that right. "The general idea of protection for free speech suggests that yelling at the referee, criticizing the players, cheering for your team, jeering the other team--all that--is protected," he says. "There's nothing about it that makes it fall within any category of speech that's unprotected."

But that's just one opinion. Despite 150 years of American public sporting events, the debate is still open because the Supreme Court has never ruled on the subject of jeering at games.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution--part of the Bill of Rights--protects religious liberty, free speech, a free press, and the right to hold protests and complain to the government. But more than 200 years after it was ratified in 1791, we're still debating what it means. One reason is that the Founders' language is quite broad and therefore open to interpretation. Another is that the world in 2013 is very different from that of 1791.

The debate over jeering at sports events is unresolved for two reasons, lawyers say. Fans removed from arenas are rarely arrested or angry enough to follow through with a lengthy--and expensive--lawsuit; and the few cases brought have almost always been settled out of court because team and arena owners fear a decision that may establish fans' rights.

"They would much rather not have the court dictating a standard," says Mark Conrad, a sports law professor at Fordham University in New York.

Stadiums usually create their own codes of conduct in order to control fans' behavior. Some colleges, for example, have tried banning all...