Some colleges reportedly plan to end a English test that has been part of their entrance process, a move that would seemingly reduce demand for English-language study.
"Kobe Bryant, Joakim Noah and Roger McDowell are not any different from many people in our society who use offensive language like that on a daily basis, " said Jarrod Chin of the Society for the Study of Sport in Society at Boston's Northeastern University.
He said he hoped common sense would now prevail so that students could come into the UK to study English with a lower level in the language, equivalent to having studied it for 150 to 200 hours.