Recent reports highlighted the "muzzling" of a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader who used her Twitter account to discuss her recent encounter with a football player. Cheerleader Melissa Kellerman was accidentally knocked over by Cowboys' tight end, Jason Witten on Thanksgiving and later decided to playfully tweet about her experience using her account. Her messages were hardly offensive, but the Dallas Cowboys were quick to silence her, and even forced her to cancel her account.
So what is it with the Cowboys? Do they have a secret vendetta to silence cheerleaders? Probably not, considering they allow cameras to follow potential Cowboys' cheerleaders around during auditions and broadcast the footage on CMT. Perhaps what bothered the team was that Kellerman was getting more than what they considered to be her own 15 minutes of fame–without the aid of a major television show.
Which brings me to my point about the power of social networking websites. For example, almost every day I'm allowed to broadcast my own viewpoints and takes on recent news via this blog, and I also have a Facebook account where I can share parts of my life. So while the Cowboys may be able to silence their cheerleaders, they certainly cannot silence me as I write about what I consider an outrageous silencing of someone who really wasn't doing any harm.
recently named in the 2009 edition of Best Lawyer's In America, David Mittleman has been representing seriously injured people since 1985. A partner with Church Wyble PC—a division of Grewal Law PLLC—Mr. Mittleman and his partners focus on medical malpractice, wrongful death, car accidents, slip and falls, nursing home injury, pharmacy/pharmacist negligence and disability claims.
One Comment
Doug B.
Hello David--
I am So Glad you wrote your blog. You, being and attorney, are the guy to ask. Isn't this Cheerleader's 4th Amendment Free Speech Rights Being Violated? This sounds like something that the Nazis would have done back in WWII. This is incredible to me. What is even MORE incredible to me, is that NO ONE is doing ANYTHING about this. I would have thought that Lawyers and/or the ACLU would be all over this. So what if this girl has a little bit of extra attention for one week. The Girl got bowled over by a Big Football Player! My God. Anyway--I wish that you would expound on this occurance. Thank You.
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