In addition to the men’s basketball tournament, the NCAA said it was also stripping North Carolina of 2016-17 season championship events for Division I women’s soccer; Division III men’s and women’s soccer; Division I women’s golf; Division III men’s and women’s tennis; Division I women’s lacrosse; and Division II baseball.
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The NCAA announced on Monday the relocation of seven previously awarded championship events – including NCAA tournament games in Greensboro – from the state of North Carolina during the 2016-17 academic year as a result of the state’s controversial House Bill 2.
The NCAA’s decision does not affect the Belk Bowl, a postseason football game scheduled to take place in Charlotte on December 29.
ACC Commissioner John Swofford said in a statement Monday night the league would discuss the issue among its chancellors and presidents this week. He said he expects the conference’s presidents and chancellors to consider relocating the game.
In announcing its decision Monday, the NCAA stated current North Carolina laws “make it challenging to guarantee that host communities can help deliver” on that requirement. The University at Albany had to cancel its basketball game at Duke University because of NY state’s ban on travel to North Carolina.
“Fairness and inclusion are right at the heart of what the NCAA does and what universities do”, NCAA President Mark Emmert said on “CBS This Morning”.
Emmert said no new sites for the seven pulled events have been identified yet, and he has not set a deadline on replacements venues being picked.
“One step doesn’t go without the other”, said Matt Hirschy, director of advancement for Equality NC.
“I’m surprised and encouraged by the NCAA’s announcement”, Zeigler said. They’ll have plenty of people involved in the debate that were also engaged with the NCAA.
HB2 was signed into law by Republican Gov.
“The NCAA Board of Governors made this decision because of the cumulative actions taken by the state concerning civil rights protections”, the NCAA wrote in a statement. The NCAA cited North Carolina’s antigay law, which bars all local laws that protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation, and the ban on transgender people using state organizations’ bathrooms that reflect their identities. But those are going to be individual decisions, not national association’s. Pat McCrory earlier this year.
“Under the NCAA’s logic, colleges should make cheerleaders and football players share bathrooms, showers and hotel rooms”, state party spokeswoman Kami Mueller said in a statement. With Duke and North Carolina likely to have tournament teams with high seeds, putting a game in nearby Greensboro was easy money for the NCAA.
2016 Division III Men’s and Women’s Soccer Championships (Greensboro), Dec. 2 and 3.
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“It would have been impossible to conduct championship events in the state with that law in place that lived up to the values and expectations of the member universities and colleges”.
