A North Carolina congressman is questioning the tax-exempt status of the Atlantic Coast Conference and NCAA after they pulled championship events from the state while citing a state law that critics say discriminates against LGBT people.
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This decision follows the NCAA’s move on Monday to relocate seven championship events that had been scheduled to be played in North Carolina during the 2016-17 school year.
That includes the conference championship game in football, which had been scheduled for December 3 in Charlotte.
The ACC’s decision will affect championships in soccer, football, swimming and diving, basketball, tennis, golf and baseball that were to be held at neutral sites across North Carolina. Pat McCrory have defended the law robustly, asking a federal court to uphold it.
The house bill passed through the North Carolina legislature in March and includes discriminatory policies against LGBT people by preventing them from using the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.
Earlier in the week, ACC Commissioner John Swofford issued a statement to media outlets saying it was time for North Carolina lawmakers to repeal the measure, which he said ran “counter to basic human rights”. No alternate sites has been announced yet for any of the events.
“This is an historically bad week and an unprecedented week in terms of lost business and damage to our reputation and brand as a great state for sporting events”, said Scott Dupree, executive director of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance, which was supposed to host several events. New locations for the events have not been announced.
The law prevents cities and counties from passing protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Such prohibitions can last for quite some time: The NCAA’s ban on SC hosting neutral-site championships for flying the Confederate flag on Statehouse grounds lasted from 2001 until it came down last summer. “Looking ahead, I am very concerned about other sports organizations that may be next in line”.
The NCAA has pulled events, including the 2017 NCAA Tournament and 2016 women’s College Cup soccer championship.
Championships held on campus sites will remain in place, because “every one of our 15 universities is strongly committed to” the conference’s values, the statement said.
“Columbia has made it known that it would be willing to host the first two rounds in 2017 or 2018, when Charlotte is schedule to host”, Ron Morris, coordinator of Columbia’s bid to host a regional, told The State.
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Swofford said the ACC would consider the issue again in the spring if nothing changed in North Carolina’s law. Cooper is a graduate of ACC member UNC-Chapel Hill. Two days later, the ACC did the same thing – relocating all 10 of its neutral-site championships from the state the conference has called home since its founding in 1953. “We hope this action will lead to productive dialogue and actions that will enable neutral site championships to return to the state in the future”. Because they are a collection of universities, and universities are becoming more inclusive not less, and because they’re all smart enough to recognize the HB2 law is discrimination in disguise.
