A Georgia legislator accused of conspiring with a local sheriff to bar college cheerleaders from kneeling during the national anthem has asked a federal judge to dismiss the claim, contending that student athletes’ constitutional rights are more limited than those afforded to the student body at large.

State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, a Cobb County Republican who is retiring from the Georgia General Assembly this year, contended in a motion filed Wednesday that student athletes who attend state-funded universities are excluded from the constitutional right to free speech afforded by the First Amendment because they are representatives of their colleges or universities—and by extension means the government that funds them.

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