Four years after George Floyd's murder, what's changed? | The Excerpt

On Saturday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: For a moment, George Floyd's murder changed everything. Are those days gone? USA TODAY Chief Political Correspondent Phillip M. Bailey discusses. The U.N.'s top court orders Israel to halt its military offensive into Rafah. USA TODAY Sports Columnist Dan Wolken talks through the implications of an NCAA deal to let schools pay their players. Documentarian Morgan Spurlock has died at 53.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, May 25th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, it's been four years since the murder of George Floyd, plus the UN's top court orders Israel to halt its Rafah offensive in Gaza, and college athletes are about to get paid.

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Today, marks four years since George Floyd was killed by police. For a moment, his murder changed everything, but are those days gone? I spoke with USA TODAY Chief Political Correspondent Phillip M. Bailey for a look at what's happened in the years since. Phillip, thanks for hopping on.

Phillip M. Bailey:

What's going on, man?

Taylor Wilson:

What were some of the pledges and commitments we heard back in 2020 in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's murder?

Phillip M. Bailey:

You saw Fortune 500 corporations making these gigantic financial pledges, saying how important diversity was in their hiring practices. You saw grants being given to do murals for tiny arts groups. Of course, millions took to the streets to protest Floyd's killing. So at the time, it seemed like almost similar to the murder of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy who was killed back in 1954 in Mississippi, and so the spark in many ways of the civil rights movement.

Many people thought, Taylor, that Floyd's killing would be a similar call to action. And in the initial months and years, it was. But four years later, a lot of those promises have been unkept, a lot of those commitments have been pulled back, and many people, activists, residents, and voters feel like we're in the midst of a backlash, not seen since the civil rights movement.

Taylor Wilson:

Why have so many of these promises remained unfulfilled? And what are some of the counter actions that have also taken place in recent years?

Phillip M. Bailey:

We saw last year the Supreme Court knock down affirmative action, a case involving two prestigious institutions of higher learning here in the United States, North Carolina and Harvard. We've seen a number of these diversity, equity, and inclusion programs come under scrutiny and be banned outright. Different state legislatures have tried to ban DEI from their colleges and universities. We all remember the growing antagonism and anxiety about critical race theory.

I talked to Stephen Graves, a professor of Africana studies out of Oklahoma State University, and his point was the recipe for these backlash movements, they've perfected it. There is enough zero-sum game sentiment around race relations in the country where anytime progress looks like it's about to be achieved or made, there's almost an immediate backlash that often starts with recasting the origins of what this initiative was, why we were here in the first place, and then it gets turned into an anti-white resentment. So I think you've seen that happen over the past four years, but there still is some hope with some of those George Floyd protesters who remain in those movements.

Taylor Wilson:

Has there been any progress around some of those demands following Floyd's murder? I'm thinking about efforts to change law enforcement, but also some of these other issues.

Phillip M. Bailey:

The failure of the movement was that the George Floyd Police Reform Act of 2021 did not pass. But largely we have seen though between 2000 and 2022, for example, 62% of the largest US cities adopted some type of alternative public safety response. That's according to the Brennan Center for Justice. You've seen in different, at least 25 states, rule changes that were directly related to the circumstances of Floyd's murder, such as curtailing use of force, like banning choke-holds, requiring officers to intervene in instances of police misconduct, and forcing local agencies to report officer misconduct data to the states.

Dr. Ben Crump, famous civil rights attorney who's representing a lot of these families, including the Floyd family and others, and he points out, "Look, we've passed over 100 bills in George Floyd's name at the local and state level." For example, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, millions of dollars we diverted to establish a new community safety department. Other cities are trying to adopt 911 alternatives where we're sending unarmed civilians to more low emergency calls.

This year we saw a bipartisan bill in the name of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was killed months before Floyd was, in her apartment by police officers, who essentially banned the use of no-knock warrants, which were used in her tragic case. But there obviously have been a lot of movement and change at the local grassroots level. And I think a lot of those activists in that space are very encouraged by that and say that the fight is not over by a long shot.

Taylor Wilson:

And Phillip, we're talking during an election year, of course, as it was back in 2020 when Floyd was murdered as well. How are some of the themes and issues that came to the forefront in the aftermath of Floyd's murder playing out this election cycle?

Phillip M. Bailey:

Accountability for law enforcement doesn't really register as a top issue for Americans. Gallup surveys have shown that what's on Americans' minds obviously is the economy, inflation. Even though violent crime has been going down in recent years, the perception of it is still very high and it's certainly something that's an anxiety for a number of Americans.

I think you will see Democrats shy away from this issue. Remember in 2020, Joe Biden featured George Floyd's sister in a campaign ad. Yet by 2022, his state of union address, he went out of his way, Taylor, to criticize defund the police, specifically saying that this is not the time to do that, we don't need to abandon our streets, that he opposes that idea. That became really a wedge issue for Democrats.

I think you're going to see candidates, particularly on the Democratic side, get pressure to talk about police accountability more. It's certainly something that I think for the Biden campaign, they're hearing it, getting an earful from African American voters who say they're not as enthusiastic about voting for Joe Biden again. So I don't think you'll see Democrats really lean into police accountability much this year, but I think you will see Republicans bring it up. So Republicans certainly see it as a wedge issue culturally.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Phillip M. Bailey, USA TODAY, chief political correspondent joining us here on the anniversary of George Floyd's murder. Thank you, Phillip.

Phillip M. Bailey:

Thank you, Taylor.

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Taylor Wilson:

The UN's top court yesterday ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive into Rafah, the southern Gaza city, where more than a million Palestinians had been sheltering. The order was adopted by a 13 to 2 vote by the International Court of Justice panel of judges. It requests that Israel submit a report to the court within a month outlining the measures it implemented.

South Africa requested the World Court to make such an order as part of a broader case, accusing Israel of committing genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel says South Africa's accusations of genocide are false, outrageous, and morally repugnant. Rulings by the court cannot be enforced and Israel is likely to ignore the order.

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The NCAA and Power Five conferences have reached a deal to let schools pay their college athletes. I caught up with USA TODAY, sports columnist, Dan Wolken for a look at how this will work and why it took so long. Dan, thanks for hopping on.

Dan Wolken:

Yeah, no problem.

Taylor Wilson:

So Dan, the NCAA and Power Five conferences have reached a deal to let schools pay players. What is in this deal exactly, and what does it functionally now mean for college sports?

Dan Wolken:

Essentially, college sports has been sued by a whole bunch of people at this point. And pretty consistently, the courts have ruled that the business model of amateurism violates antitrust law. And in this settlement, you're talking about a $2.8 billion damage outlay from the NCAA to the plaintiffs in this case. And the bottom line is that colleges and the NCAA have now recognized that they have to be the ones to share revenue with college athletes.

And so some of that $2.8 billion is going to go to former athletes, people who are no longer playing college sports, while also schools are going to have to set up a revenue sharing agreement that puts in the neighborhood of $20 million per year, that's going to go up a little bit over time, into a pool that they will have to distribute to their athletes. And there's a lot of details that are still yet to be determined about exactly how that's going to be done, but that's the basic nuts and bolts of it.

Taylor Wilson:

And Dan, for folks who don't follow college sports, can you just help us understand how we got to this point and why did it take so long?

Dan Wolken:

Well, for decades and decades, the NCAA has been predicated on this notion that college athletes are students primarily, and as students who just happen to play sports, they are not entitled to any sort of salary or anything beyond their scholarship. They get a small stipend check that they call the cost of attendance.

If you go back about a decade, the forces of capitalism have caught the NCAA in this whirlwind of people looking at the arrangement and saying, "You guys are making an incredible amount of money off college sports." Coaches are making $10 million a year now, even these small sports, sports that just don't make any money at all, even their coaches are making several hundred thousand dollars a year.

And the reason that's all happening in addition to these fancy facilities is because they actually don't have to pay the players. It was a business model that was great for the colleges and their revenue grew and the scholarship that the student athletes were getting essentially stayed the same.

And so that prompted a series of legal challenges over the course of a number of years. And now here we are where pretty consistently, all these courts have just said this cannot go on. And the NCAA, as resistant to change as it's been, has essentially been forced to allow name, image, and likeness. The athletes can go get marketing deals and sponsorships and advertisements, and now they're going to be paid directly by the school. So it's a pretty big change that's happened because of all these legal challenges that have come right to the NCAA's doorstep.

Taylor Wilson:

And Dan, you wrote about private equity getting involved here as the business model shifts. What do we know here and what are some of the potential concerns?

Dan Wolken:

A lot of these schools now looking at the amount of money they're going to have to pay to college athletes as part of a revenue sharing deal, they're a little bit concerned about where that money's going to come from. They've been operating on these budgets for a number of years where they essentially spend everything they make, and now they've got this huge new expense.

And so private equity affiliated people have been pitching, "Hey, we'll give you 50 million, $100 million to do whatever you want with. And what we're going to do is on the back end, take a significant percentage of future revenue and we're going to offer, if you want it, our expertise on how to make more money." There's certainly an appeal to that because a lot of these schools are feeling a cash crunch.

But at the same time, what you're doing is by letting in an outside entity, especially one with a track record of going in and in some cases gutting businesses, significantly reducing expenses, making different deals with their debt responsibilities, that these schools, 10 years, 15 years down the road, could be ceding a significant portion of control that they have, not just over their own revenue, but over their own business strategy.

And so I don't know that this is necessarily going to be a huge thing that a bunch of schools are going to be raising their hand and trying to take this money because I do think a lot of them understand the implications of it. But there are definitely some schools that are desperate enough to give it a thought.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Dan Wolken is a national columnist for USA TODAY Sports. Thank you, Dan.

Dan Wolken:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Morgan Spurlock, the director and documentarian behind the film, Supersize Me, has died. He rose to fame as the subject of the diet documentary that followed his physical and emotional reactions to eating from fast food chain, McDonald's, every single day for a month. Supersize Me became a sensation among viewers for its social commentary about health, wellness, and obesity as Spurlock strictly consumed to chain, including its supersize option to prove the harms of fast food in America and around the world.

He also starred in other projects from his 2008 documentary, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden, to the 3-season reality show 30 Days. He later outed himself during the Me Too movement saying he was accused of rape in college and called himself part of the problem. Morgan Spurlock was 53.

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Electric vehicles are significantly more expensive than gas powered cars. Will they ever become affordable? Be sure to tune into The Excerpt tomorrow as my co-host, Dana Taylor, is joined by Duncan Wood, an expert on EVs at the Wilson Center. You can find the episode right here beginning at 5:00 AM, Eastern Time. And a shout-out to all the nerds out there. Today is Geek Pride Day.

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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.