The NCAA announced last night that it was relocating its championship games because of North Carolina’s passage of House Bill 2, a controversial measure that has been criticized as the most anti-LGBT bill in the country.
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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.
“Current North Carolina state laws make it challenging to guarantee that host communities can help deliver on that commitment if NCAA events remained in the state”.
In a statement today, he said of the NCAA decision, “The issue of redefining gender and basic norms of privacy will be resolved in the near future in the United States court system for not only North Carolina but the entire nation”. “The NCAA is guilty of extreme hypocrisy – while it bullies the people of North Carolina to allow boys in the girls’ locker rooms, showers and bathrooms, it prohibits boys from playing on girls’ sports teams”. The NCAA cited both of these aspects of the law in justifying its decision to move its games – and it’s just the latest in a growing number of businesses, which are under pressure from LGBTQ advocates, to do so.
Mueller concluded: “I wish the NCAA was this concerned about the women who were raped at Baylor”.
In a prepared statement that explained the NCAA decision that the Board of Governors handed down, it said that NCAA events and championships must be able to promote full inclusive for every college athlete, coach, administrator and fan.
In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Emmert said the association expects to take a financial hit for moving seven championship events and tournament games out of the state on short notice, but how much is unknown. It also directs all public schools, government agencies and public college campuses to require that multiple-occupancy bathrooms and changing facilities be designated for use according to the “biological sex” stated on a person’s birth certificate. If it’s willing to pull events from North Carolina with less than three months of warning, there’s no chance it’s giving out any new ones.
The seven previously-awarded events, which included two rounds of the highly-coveted Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, will now be relocated.
North Carolina became a lightning rod for criticism after adopting several laws directly targeting LGBT residents.
HB2 was signed into law by Republican Gov. The NCAA bans championships in states where governments display the Confederate battle flag or at schools that use hostile and abusive Native American imagery.
It may be hard for the Republicans, including North Carolina Gov.
“We’re all aware, except for Pat McCrory, that the damage will continue until we take the worst LGBT bill in the nation off the books”, said Chris Sgro, the executive director of Equality NC, an LGBT rights group that has fought against the law.
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Greensboro, Cary, Raleigh and other North Carolina cities are seeking to host scores of other NCAA events over the next six years that could be worth tens of millions of dollars. In 2015, it pressured the state of IN over it law that was passed just days prior to the Final Four that was to take place IN Indianapolis, that critics had said could help condone discrimination.
