Just this week, the Supreme Court issued a major decision that clarifies exactly why the players’ anthem protests are protected by our labor laws. In this decision, Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis, the Court concludes that the National Labor Relations Act is, at its core, designed to “protect things employees ‘just do’ for themselves in the course of exercising their right to free association in the workplace.” Put plainly, the Court holds that collective actions engaged in by employees at work are the heart of labor law’s concern.

In Epic, the Court uses this reasoning to hold that pursuing class-action arbitrations is not something labor law protects. Whether you accept that view or not — I do not — it is impossible to come up with a clearer example of something employees “just do for themselves” as a means of “exercising their right to free association in the workplace” than the anthem protests. They are a perfect example of the type of concerted activity that labor law is designed to protect.

Some might object that labor law does not protect these protests because they’re about something other than work: They’re about police brutality, or systemic racism, or the president’s view of what patriotism means. Of course, in some sense this is exactly what the protests are about. But in a more direct, literal sense, what the players are protesting is the requirement that they stand during the national anthem. That’s what the protest is: a refusal to stand.