CMI: KICK VICK OUT OF NFL

ALEXANDRIA, VA In light of the announcement that Atlanta Falcon superstar Michael Vick will plead guilty to operating a dog fighting ring, the Media Research Centers Culture and Media Institute calls upon the NFL to ban Vick permanently from professional football as broadcasting him as a role model to millions of impressionable young people on national television is unacceptable:

Michael Vick has overstepped the bounds of human civility, said L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center. Vick is no longer fit to serve as a role model for the millions of children who look up to and take their social cues from professional athletes who appear on television week in and week out.

Vick had an opportunity to teach, guide and inspire our nations youth but instead, he degraded himself and his profession by taking part in such brutal and inhumane acts, said Culture and Media Institutes director Robert Knight.

Michael Vick no longer deserves the stardom and the limelight offered by the NFL, Knight continued.

The NFL should kick Vick out and send a strong message to our nations youth and to other professional athletes who bear a mantle of responsibility when they suit up to play professional sports. Our children deserve nothing less and giving a convicted felon televised airtime is unacceptable, Knight added.