Note: I had promised readers three articles on misinformation. They’re still coming, just in two weeks. I wanted to talk about this issue while it was still in the news.
Tennis has been an inexplicably major forum to debate social issues in modern times. The Battle of the Sexes, where Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs, was a landmark moment in the feminist movement. Serena Williams’ 2018 blowup at an umpire prompted serious introspection about the double-standards of decorum that people hold for male versus female athletes. In 2021, Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open to protect her mental health, an event that led to a more open discussion of mental illness among athletes. However, as far as I can tell, there has never been a controversy in tennis over public health guidance and immigration law.
Until now, that is. On January 5, 2022, top-ranked tennis player Novak Djokovic found himself in detention after his Australian visa was denied. In the days leading up to his arrival, there was an explosion of public anger about his intention to compete in the Australian Open. See, Djokovic is unvaccinated against COVID-19, and Australia is experiencing its first major wave of COVID-19. The country had previously avoided the worst of the pandemic through strict border controls and tight lockdowns, which proved to be extremely disruptive to the lives of average Australians. Melbourne was under lockdown for 262 days in two years!
In this context, it’s no surprise that the public was in no mood to allow an unvaccinated tennis star to enter the country. But this particular event became international news and received a huge amount of attention in the Australian media and beyond. Why? In this article, I’ll argue that the public’s reaction was rooted in a perceived violation of moral values, and that this event gives us insight into how different possible moral interpretations of events are weighed against one another.
The Facts
Novak Djokovic is a bit of a quack. Some of his more colourful claims include that people who are intolerant to gluten become weaker when holding bread, and that positive thinking can purify water (don’t try that at home). His skepticism of modern medicine has extended to vaccines, which he opposes. Unsurprisingly, he remains unvaccinated against COVID-19.
But tennis stops for no new variant, and the Australian Open was scheduled to begin on January 17, 2022. This is a big one for Djokovic: he’s the reigning champion, and if he wins, he’ll have won a record 21 Grand Slam titles. Rafael Nadal – who, like Djokovic, has won 20 titles – will also be attending, setting the stage for an epic tennis history showdown in Melbourne. As a result, tournament organizers and Tennis Australia, the sport’s governing body, wanted Djokovic to attend, even though the tournament’s internal rules mandated that every player must be vaccinated.
Of course, sometimes people can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons, so Tennis Australia and the Australian province of Victoria (where the tournament would be held) allowed players to apply for and receive a medical exemption to the vaccine mandate. Djokovic applied for this exemption, and after what Tennis Australia described as a “rigorous review process involving two separate independent panels of medical experts,” he received permission to play unvaccinated. This decision ignited immediate public controversy, long before the tennis player boarded a flight for Australia on January 4, 2022.
Unfortunately for Djokovic, neither Tennis Australia nor the Province of Victoria controls entry at the border. Under federal rules, all travelers entering Australia must present evidence of double-vaccination. Two weeks before the start of the tournament, Djokovic arrived at customs, and border control did not recognize the legitimacy of Djokovic’s medical exemption. Border control then promptly revoked Djokovic’s visa, detained him, and began the deportation process.
It later emerged that Djokovic’s “medical exemption” was based on a prior COVID-19 infection, which the Australian government does not recognize as a valid grounds for not getting a vaccine. It appears that the federal government (who controls access to the country) and Tennis Australia (who sets the rules for the tournament) had different standards for medical exemptions. Djokovic may have met Tennis Australia’s criteria, but not the federal government’s. Consequently, he found himself in a hotel awaiting a legal challenge.
On January 10, 2022, the courts intervened, and reinstated Djokovic’s visa. As of writing, the Minister of Immigration is considering using the extraordinary powers of his office to re-cancel the tennis star’s visa on public health grounds.
Public Enemy #1
Based on my unscientific study of Australian news, Novak Djokovic is probably the most hated man in Australia. The coverage of his arrival in Australia was almost exclusively negative. The nicknames wrote themselves: “Novaxx” is admittedly pretty funny. When his visa was revoked, user Different-Street-919 for summed up the national sentiment on the Australia Reddit forum with this #1-rated comment:
Good. Fuck off
Some other commenters were a bit more long-winded. A longtime staffer at the Australian Open called the granting of a medical exemption to Djokovic a “slap in the face to the majority of Victorians.” American columnist Max Boot wrote that “Djokovic is another whiny sports superstar with an exaggerated sense of entitlement.” Even a relatively understanding article by the chief sports writer of the Guardian admitted that Djokovic was the “world’s most-reviled [vaccine] refusenik.”
These reactions are clearly rooted in moral outrage. This isn’t a polite discussion about the merits of vaccination and travel policy. This is gloves-off, emotional barb-trading. And it’s in these kinds of situations where values analysis can add some rigor. What values did Djokovic violate in his decision to come to Australia without having received the jab?
The Value
The primary operational value is Fairness (i.e., people should be treated in similar ways and/or people should get what they deserve). The root of the fury was a perception that Djokovic was receiving special treatment because of his status as the best male tennis player in the world. While the rest of the population sits in lockdown, Australians believed that Djokovic expected to waltz into the country on a first-class flight and avoid the rules as they applied to everyone else. That’s unfair.
It’s important to note that there are two expressions of the Fairness value: equity (i.e. people should be treated in similar ways) and proportionality (i.e. people should get what they deserve). Djokovic’s behaviour violated the equity expression of this value, rather than the proportionality one. In fact, under proportionality, maybe Djokovic should be able to avoid some rules. He’s one of the all-time best tennis players, and he has a chance to make history. Sure, everyone else has to abide by border restrictions, but most people aren’t on the verge of winning the most Grand Slam titles of all time. It could be considered fair that he can sidestep a couple of relatively minor rules; he’s earned it. Judging by the public’s reaction though, this was not the view most people took. In the conflict between equity and proportionality, equity won out.
More importantly, it could also be argued that Djokovic was actually treated inequitably. After all, Australia has a medical exemption process that is available to everyone, and Djokovic got one. His fame and fortune shouldn’t invite closer scrutiny than the average person receives. This is the tack that the tournament organizers took to defend the exemption. The tournament director stated that “fair and independent protocols were established for assessing medical exemption applications that will enable us to ensure Australian Open 2022 is safe and enjoyable for everyone. […] Central to this process was that the decisions were made by independent medical experts and that every applicant was given due consideration.” If Djokovic didn’t receive special treatment in receiving his exemption, then it’s unfair that he receives so much heat for attempting to attend the Australian Open.
Fellow tennis players raised this point on social media. American player (and fellow vaccine skeptic) Tennys Sandgren tweeted that “2 separate medical boards approved [Djokovic’s] exemption. And politicians are stopping it. Australia doesn’t deserve to host a grand slam.” Sergiy Stakhovsky, a Ukrainian tennis player, claimed that “purely political “ego” is not allowing [sic] best tennis player in the world to enter the country to which they [sic] “ governmental institutions” granted entry.” If a prior COVID-19 infection was not sufficient, Djokovic should have been told in advance. He wasn’t, a major blunder by Tennis Australia, who arranged for players’ visas. But why should Djokovic pay the price for Tennis Australia’s screw-up?
This argument formed the basis of the Australian court’s decision to reinstate Djokovic’s visa. During the proceedings, noting that the tennis star had received a seemingly robust medical exemption, the judge exclaimed, “what more could this man have done?” Opponents may respond that he should have gotten vaccinated or not come at all, but that’s beside the point. According to the court, Djokovic followed the procedures that were in place to the best of his ability, so it is fair to let him enter the country. The court also cited issues with his detention as evidence, as Djokovic was unable to contact his lawyers before his visa was cancelled. This fact proved to be critical, as the judge ruled that Djokovic was denied “procedural fairness” in having his visa cancelled so quickly. This did not mean that the judge objected to the government’s vaccination rules or that Djokovic should have been allowed to enter Australia. Rather, the border agents screwed up during the detention, so he got a free pass. You might call this a technicality.
Now, of course, just because an argument is accepted by the courts doesn’t mean it’s convincing or morally acceptable to everyone else. It’s abundantly clear that the debate over equity has been decided by the public: Novak Djokovic deserved no sympathy, and he should have been deported. There are a few factors that contributed to the persuasiveness of this view. First, to the average person, it’s ridiculous that a top-tier athlete is healthy enough to win 20 Grand Slams, but somehow also sick enough that he can’t get vaccinated. Most people believe medical exemptions are for people who can’t get the vaccine, not people who don’t want to. Consequently, Djokovic’s actions were seen by many as an attempt to leverage a compassionate exception program for personal gain, like an able-bodied person using a fake handicapped parking pass.
Second, no one believes that Tennis Australia treated Djokovic and the other athletes equally. This belief was well expressed by UK player Jamie Murray: “I think if I hadn’t been vaccinated, I wouldn’t have been exempt.” True or false, the public believed that Djokovic was granted a medical exemption because of who he is. And when it comes to moral outrage, perception is everything. The court’s intervention did little to assuage this view. Why were Djokovic’s high-priced lawyers were able to get a favourable decision, but Czech tennis player Renata Voráčová was deported despite holding the same exemption? Interesting.
Third, frankly speaking, anti-vaxxers are becoming hated by a large subset of the population in Australia (and in many other countries). There isn’t a lot of data available on public opinion on unvaccinated people yet, but it’s not hard to feel it in the air. Take this top-rated comment on the tennis Reddit forum: “And all he needed to do was get a tiny poke in the arm that close to a billion people have received without incident worldwide. Hard to feel a lot of sympathy for him here.” I have referenced it before, but the Herman Cain Award Reddit forum, which basically celebrates the deaths of anti-vaxxers, has reached half a million subscribers in fifteen months (and there are probably millions more people who have seen the posts, but didn’t subscribe). There’s palatable schadenfreude when bad things happen to anti-vaxxers, so Djokovic was unlikely to receive compassion due to his unorthodox medical views.
Conclusion
To sum up, in line with the Fairness value, the Australian public pressed the federal government to deny entry to Djokovic, and their efforts to refuse him entry appear to have been broadly popular. And when, primarily on a technicality, their efforts came to naught, the biggest loser was the Australian government. Here are a couple of top-rated comments on the Australia Reddit forum about the judge’s decision to re-instate Djokovic’s visa:
This is yet another embarrassment for Morrison, his ministers and an inept Border Force. Don’t like Djokovic but we’ve managed to make an anti-vaxxer into a hero through this monumental failure of government.
Just vote this government out. They’re an embarrassment. It sounds like they tried to make an example out of Djokovic for political gain and it blew up in their face.
Imagine being locked out of your own country for months and months, doing everything you can go return home while scomo [Prime Minister Scott Morrison] puffs his chest about tough borders. Then this happens.
It’s no surprise that the government would lose political capital after these events. The government has a responsibility to ensure that outcomes are morally tolerable. The public wanted Djokovic out of the country, and the government was unable to make it happen. In short, the government bungled the issue and failed. This raises the importance of values analysis during program design. If this situation had been foreseen when the medical exemption program was being created, would a medical exemption have been granted to any tennis players at all? Probably not. In Australia, the people have spoken: medical exemptions are for individuals with legitimate medical problems, not for world-class athletes who don’t want to get a vaccine.
I have focused this article on the Fairness value, because it is the most important value in this situation. However, this analysis isn’t complete, as there are five other values that could be operational. Next week, I’ll argue that there are two other values that help explain the ferocity of the outrage: Loyalty and Authority. When these two are combined, they can have exceptional power.