More recently, Kyrie Irving had a lot of problems "just" because he shared a controversial documentary available on Amazon.
That's not what I would call "freedom of expression".
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/06/1121322520/a-black-protester-...
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Both men are still free to to express themselves as they see fit.
You seem to be conflating two different issues. Freedom of expression although closely linked to freedom of association is distinct from it. Freedom of association is the right to form and join clubs, societies, trade unions or political parties with anyone you choose. In your two examples both of those individuals chose to join professional sports clubs as contract employees. As such they were beholden to whatever codes of conduct their employers set forth, the same as any job. Contrast this to Kanye West who was also recently shoveling a bunch anti-semitic garbage. Kanye works for himself and so was not beholden to an association's code of conduct.
By the way the net result of Kyrie Irving's "problems" were an 8 game suspension. He's back playing as of yesterday. And just to put in perspective how different Kapernick and Irving situations are, four years ago Kyrie Irving was pushing "flat earth" nonsense.[1]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/movies/kyrie-irving-nba-c...
>"WHAT DOES FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ACTUALLY MEAN?"
>"The First Amendment guarantees our right to free expression and free association, which means that the government does not have the right to forbid us from saying what we like and writing what we like; we can form clubs and organizations, and take part in demonstrations and rallies." [1]
However the The First Amendment has limits, it does not cover what's classified as "true threats."[2][3] And of course context matters. In this case Brittany Martin was standing chest to chest with a police officer in extremely tense situation and exclaimed:
“Y’all want war, y’all got it,” “We’re ready to die for this,” and “You better be ready to die for the blue. I’m ready to die for the Black” [4]
Do you believe had if she been in the middle of the crowd or in an empty parking lot exclaiming the same with a megaphone she would have been arrested? And while I don't agree with the outcome of any of this, she did in fact have a jury trial. It was a jury that found her guilty. A jury of eight men, five being white and the other three being Black, and six women, five of whom where Black and one white.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/other/your-right-free-expression
[2] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats
[3] https://www.aclumich.org/en/cases/true-threats-case
[4] https://www.theitem.com/classifieds/stories/jury-finds-sumte...
No, that's my whole point. She said something that the authorities did not like. She did not do anything whatsoever. And she was jailed for it. She was punished by the government for saying something she liked to say.
You consider a single unarmed woman speaking a 'true threat' to a phalanx of armed police men? I guess there's not much right to free expression left then. The cops on the photo sure do look frightened. I guess she can be happy that she wasn't simply shot on the spot.
https://ij.org/press-release/new-supreme-court-appeal-asks-c...
Unless in your world jokes on facebook are also "true threats".
It's shocking how common this misconception is recently. To maintain our democracy citizens need to understand and care about civics. If we reach a critical mass of people who fundamentally don't care what the constitution says, we are in for big problems.
> What it does not and cannot do is force other people to continue doing business with someone, as that would violate their own rights to free expression.
If I fire someone after they change their religion to one I disagree with, would I be free from legal consequence?
[1] https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2695566-colin-kaepernick...