HBO's Bill Maher called out the NFL Friday for its inclusion of the black national anthem ahead of Thursday's season opening game, a move that the "Real Time" host blasted as a form of segregation.
"I saw last night on the football game, Alicia Keys sang ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,' which now I hear is called the Black national anthem," Maher said on his show. "Now, maybe we should get rid of our national anthem, but I think we should have one national anthem."
"I think when you go down a road where you're having two different national anthems, colleges sometimes now have … many of them have different graduation ceremonies for Black and White, separate dorms -- this is what I mean! Segregation! You've inverted the idea. We're going back to that under a different name," he continued.
Maher also slammed American colleges and universities for becoming a "social justice factory," referencing several instances where educators have resigned over pressure to be more of "political activists" than teachers.
The most recent example of this was a Portland State University philosophy professor stepping down earlier this week after he was informed that he could no longer offer his opinion to students on the topic of protected classes.
Maher, who has been a vocal critic of the woke left as of late, pointed out that he has been calling out liberals because they are "embarrassing" him.
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"To me, when people say to me sometimes, like, ‘Boy, you really go after the left these days. Why?’ Because you're embarrassing me," Maher said. "That's why I'm going after the left in a way you never did before. Because you're inverting things that I- I'm not going to give up on being liberal! This is what these teachers are talking about. You're taking children and making them hyper-aware of race in a way they wouldn't otherwise be!"
He went on to criticize the University of Oregon for lowering graduation standards for "people of color," with panelist George Will agreeing, calling it the "soft bigotry of low expectations." However, the other panelist, Christina Bellantoni, was far less critical of the school's new standards for minorities and said that it's "important to understand" why these discussions are taking place.
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