On Thursday,sex ??ng vat the WNBA announced they were fining three teams -- Indiana Fever, New York Liberty and Phoenix Mercury -- over players recently wearing shirts in protest of recent U.S. shootings. The American women's basketball league fined each team $5,000 and each player $500.
SEE ALSO: WNBA Player Puts on Astonishing Shooting ShowThe WNBA sent out a memo earlier this week to the teams reminding them of the uniform policy. Minnesota, New York and Dallas players all wore shirts with slogans in remembrance of two men who were shot by police and the five Dallas police officers who were killed in an attack on July 7.
Earlier this month, New York players wore shirts with "#BlackLivesMatter" and "#Dallas5" on them. While, Minnesota players donned shirts with the slogan, "Change starts with us."
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Recently, New York players simply wore plain black shirts bearing only the Adidas logo. The team has worn the plain shirts multiple times including Wednesday morning, while the Fever and Mercury players wore theirs on Tuesday, with all incidents coming after the league's memo.
Minnesota Lynx players, who avoided a fine, only wore their shirts once and said they will shift their focus to addressing the issue in other ways. The protest caused a stir when police officers working security for the Lynx game on July 9 walked out in protest of the shirts. The team hasn't donned their shirts since receiving the league memo.
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WNBA President Lisa Borders said Wednesday night in statement that the fines were about violating the uniform policy, not their stance.
"We are proud of WNBA players' engagement and passionate advocacy for non-violent solutions to difficult social issues but expect them to comply with the league's uniform guidelines," Borders said.
Some players, though, were still upset at the decision. "What's most upsetting is the way it was handled," Indiana Fever player rep Briann January said. "You have a league that is 90 — if not above 90 percent African American — and you have an issue that is directly affecting them and the people they know and you have a league that isn't willing to side with them. It's not a race issue, not an anti-police issue, not a black or white issue. It's a right or wrong issue."
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Another Fever player, Tamika Catchings, said, "Instead of the league taking a stance with us, where they tell us they appreciate us expressing our concerns like they did for Orlando, we're fighting against each other."
When several star NBA players, including Derrick Rose and Lebron James, donned "I can't breathe" shirts in 2014 to protest the death of Eric Garner at the hands of police, that league did not levy fines against players or teams.
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After players wore the shirts, NBA commissioner David Silver said, "I respect Derrick Rose and all of our players for voicing their personal views on important issues but my preference would be for players to abide by our on-court attire rules."
Shortly after Silver's statement, the players stopped wearing the shirts but have continued discussions with the league on engaging in a public dialogue on the issues.
Speaking last week at the NBA's Board of Governors meeting, Silver reiterated his stance on the uniform policy for both the NBA and the WNBA but encouraged players to be actively involved using other outlets.
...my preference would be that players adhere to our uniform rules, both in the NBA and the WNBA. I think it's a very slippery slope. As to where you would draw the line when it's appropriate for a particular player to use that, use a game, pregame, as a political forum, I think it's a dangerous road for us to go down. So I would greatly prefer that the players use the platform they're given, social media, press conferences, media in locker rooms, however they want to do it, to make their political points of view be known.
The most recent example of this was a group of players, including James and Carmelo Anthony, addressing the issue at this year's ESPYs.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press.
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