By Jocelyn Jones
Contributor
In the past week, the NCAA, along with the ACC, pulled championship-sporting events from North Carolina due to House Bill 2. The North Carolina legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory were warned back in March during the final four by the NCAA: if there was no action on repealing the bill, then the state would be at risk for losing NCAA events, which includes the first and second round of the men’s basketball tournament in Greensboro the News and Observer Luke Decock reports. Instead of skipping North Carolina in the next bid cycle, the NCAA decided to immediately pull events from the state.
The ACC followed suit on last Wednesday and removed 10 championships from the state. According to WRAL news, this will include the Dr. Pepper ACC Football Championship game in Charlotte, which brought in $32 million last year. Cary will lose ACC women’s soccer, men and women’s tennis tournaments, and the ACC baseball tournament will be relocated from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
The ACC’s decision however is particularly troubling for Greensboro, seeing how the city is the home of the ACC, founded in 1953 at the Sedgefield Inn. It lost four championships as a result of the NCAA and ACC’s decision, which include; women’ s basketball, women’s golf, as well as men and women’s swimming and diving, according to News and Record’s Jeff Mill.
Gov. McCrory signed the bill into law back in March, and it requires transgender people to use public restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate. The law also prevents local government from enacting their own anti- discrimination laws that would include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
HB2 was in response to the City of Charlotte’s law that would have allowed transgender individuals to use the restroom according to the gender they identify with.
In response to the NCAA and ACC’s decision, Gov. McCrory asks for the organizations to wait for the decision of the federal court on HB2. “ I strongly encourage all public and private institutions to both respect and allow our nations’ judicial system to proceed with economic threats or political retaliation toward the 22 states that are currently challenging government overreach,” McCrory said in a statement on Wednesday.
He, along with Republican legislative leaders, have no immediate plans to repeal or revise the law which was framed on the basis of protecting women and girls in public restrooms. In a statement House Speaker Tim Moore said, “ The truth remains that this law was never about and does not promote discrimination. We will continue to advocate that North Carolina is a great place to live, do business, hold event and to visit.”
The NCAA and ACC are not the first to pull events from the state in response to the discriminatory law. The NBA removed the 2017 All-Star game from Charlotte and relocated it to New Orleans. Companies have removed thousands of jobs, while entertainers and singers have pulled concerts from the state.
