Officials announced they will relocate seven of their championships planned in North Carolina in response to the signing of the controversial bathroom law.
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“The NCAA Constitution clearly states our values of inclusion and gender equity, along with the membership’s expectation that we as the Board of Governors protect those values for all”, said Susquehanna University President Jay Lemons, vice chair of the Board of Governors and chair of the ad hoc committee on diversity and inclusion.
USA collegiate officials announced Monday, September 12 (Tuesday, September 13 in Manila) that 7 sporting events previously awarded to North Carolina would be relocated over the state’s law limiting anti-discrimination protections for gays.
The announcement was a shot across the bow of the North Carolina Legislature, which had enacted what was seen as an anti LGBT law, most notably requiring that transgender people use the bathroom of the sex identified on their birth certificates, and blocking cities from passing legislation prohibiting discriminating against gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender people.
The NCAA also noted that five states and several cities have banned travel to North Carolina by public employees and representatives of public institutions, which it said may affect student-athletes and campus sports staffers.
“It seems that nearly every day, we learn of a new effect of HB2”, Ford Porter, Cooper’s campaign spokesman, said in a statement.
NCAA basketball tournament games set to take place in Greensboro, N.C., in 2017 now will be held elsewhere.
“I wish the NCAA was this concerned about the women who were raped at Baylor”, spokeswoman Kami Mueller said Monday night. “Perhaps the NCAA should stop with their political peacocking- and instead focus their energies on making sure our nation’s collegiate athletes are safe, both on and off the field”.
Dallas Woodhouse, the Executive Director for the North Carolina Republican Party (NCGOP), said the move was “so absurd it’s nearly comical”. In all, the NCAA said North Carolina has hosted 251 men’s tournament games since 1951, the most of any state.
“Add this to the thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars Pat McCrory’s discrimination bill have cost North Carolina”, said North Carolina Democratic Party spokesman Dave Miranda.
“We need to repeal this law and get our state back on track”, Cooper said in a statement.
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, cheered the move.
New sites for those events have yet to be determined.
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.
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The NCAA said it will relocate the men’s basketball first- and second-round games that were scheduled for March 17 and 19 in Greensboro.
