On Wednesday, the ACC followed suit, pulling a major football event from Charlotte despite a nine-year contract that placed the game in the city from 2010-2019.
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The women’s golf championship was to be held at Sedgefield Country Club, the site in 1953 where the league was created.
The ACC’s move comes two days after the NCAA announced it would be relocating seven championship events that were previously awarded to North Carolina during the 2016-17 academic year.
In a joint statement, the Chancellors of North Carolina State and University of North Carolina, Randy Woodson and Carol Folt respectively, said that they “regret today’s decision will negatively affect many North Carolinians, especially in the affected host communities”.
Speaker Tim Moore presided in March when the General Assembly approved House Bill 2, limiting anti-discrimination rules for LGBT people and governing which bathrooms transgender people can use at schools and government buildings. Our policies protect students, faculty and staff from discrimination, regardless of age, color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or veteran status.
The law, signed earlier this year by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who has defended it as a commonsense safety and security measure.
ACC Commissioner John Swofford emphasized that while not everyone agrees with the decision, it was one the league had to make.
Spartanburg Communications Manager Will Rothschild said he believes local colleges have the facilities necessary to host some championship events.
Kami Mueller, a spokesman for groups reacting to the NCAA action, said, “I genuinely look forward to the NCAA merging all men’s and women’s teams together as singular, unified, unisex teams”.
“We’ll do what we need to do”, Swofford said. “Whether or not that’s going to happen before the election I highly doubt, even though I feel that’s the right thing for him to do”, Jackson said. “A hard one in ways, but an easy one in ways considering the principles involved”, he said. “But it is consistent with the shared values of inclusion and non-discrimination at all of our institutions.”It has not been announced where the 2016 ACC Championship Game will move”. It had been slated to take place at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, but will now be looking for another home. “We’ll go to Pluto and play, wherever”, Swinney said. “It’s a challenge, our next challenge”.
Football is not the only sport affected.
Another North Carolina Republican legislator is raising the prospect of repealing a law about LGBT rights that’s caused the NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference to pull championships from the state this week. The NCAA said bids for those events are due September 27 and hopes to decide the new sites by October 7.
“The NCAA has just sent out a notice about hosting for all events to be relocated from North Carolina”. The most prominent one, the ACC football title game, was slated for December 3 in Charlotte.
“What a frightful irony: Greensboro, rated the Carolinas’ most welcoming city for the LGBT community by the Human Rights Campaign, would love to continue hosting the women’s basketball tournament”. And PayPal reversed plans to open a 400-employee operation center in Charlotte. The last time an ACC baseball championship was played outside of North Carolina was in 2008 in Jacksonville, Florida.
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The league said new venues will be announced later.
