Five years after players protested the school’s response to racism by refusing to play, the reverberations are still being felt in Columbia—and nationwide.

On June 3, most of the Missouri football team gathered with coaches and administrators and walked a half mile from campus to the Boone County Courthouse, where they knelt in silence to commemorate the recent killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Afterward, about 60 players entered the building and registered to vote.

Similar athlete demonstrations had played out at U.S. colleges since Floyd’s death a week before, but this one held particular meaning because it was at Missouri, where five years earlier the Tigers had launched a groundbreaking midseason protest. Those players had refused to participate in football-related activities until the university president, who they believed had responded inadequately to a series of racist incidents on campus, was removed.

Now, across the country, football teams were using