Don’t Take a Knee Unless Its Before a Ballgame

While we watch television stations, legal institutions, corporations, and every christian church from coast to coast sell off their spines to a pirate peddling protection from himself, one rare flash of integrity rises. And maybe, just today on SSIOL, we have something worth calling good.

Here’s what went down:

• On August 1, 2025, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) announced it will no longer accept any federal funding for its programs or operations. 🔗 ACOG Statement
  
• This move is a direct response to policy changes under the Trump administration, which ACOG argues undermine its ability to issue evidence-based guidance, especially for preventive women’s health services.
  
• In 2025 alone, ACOG’s affiliated foundation received about $950,000 from HHS. Total federal grants across 2024–2025 topped $2 million, covering maternal health equity and more.

Now, some folks are already brushing this off claiming it’s toothless since ACOG left the door open to return to federal partnership “in the future.” And fine, maybe it’s not a permanent divorce. But let’s not pretend this doesn’t matter.

They just turned down a seven-figure federal check. Voluntarily. That’s rare. Especially in a professional class that usually chooses “access” over action and credentials over conscience.

Call it what you want, but I call it refusal. Not rebellion. Not revolution. Just a flat, unglamorous no, and that’s enough for now.

So, here’s a little challenge to the ones who still have invitations to the table: decline. You don’t have to sit through another meeting designed to sanitize your dissent. You don’t have to trade silence for lanyards. You can follow ACOG’s lead and walk the hell out. And you will do it with your license intact and a scrap of integrity left in your pocket.

Because here’s the truth, uncomfortable as it is:

Don’t take a knee unless it’s before a ball game.

Anywhere else, in a courtroom, a medical boardroom, in front of a federal grants officer; it stops being a symbol and becomes a submission.
And in this country, we’ve mistaken silent kneeling for diplomacy and called that progress.

ACOG stood up. Not because they had to, but because they couldn’t keep kneeling and still call it medicine.
It’s not a revolution. But it’s not performance either.
It’s a reminder: credibility isn’t currency unless you spend it on the truth.