A Republican-sponsored bill in the state House of Representatives would require N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina to withdraw from the Atlantic Coast Conference if the conference chooses to “boycott” the state over laws passed by the General Assembly. The bill does not specifically mention HB2, but as the Winston-Salem Journal’s Richard Craver writes,”analysts and economists say HB 728 is a response to the role the NCAA and ACC played in convincing enough lawmakers to vote for a repeal of the divisive transgender restroom law.”
Key quote from JLF’s own Mitch Kokai (emphasis mine):
“Sponsors of this bill appear to have a bitter taste in their mouths after the ACC and NCAA played an outsized role in the debate over House Bill 2,” said Mitch Kokai, a policy analyst with Libertarian think tank John Locke Foundation.
“While I suspect that a large group within the General Assembly agrees that these sports organizations had no business interfering in state public policy, I also suspect that a majority of lawmakers have no strong desire to resuscitate this debate.”
“Outsized role” being the key words within that key quote. While I don’t favor the General Assembly mandating conference affiliations, my hope would be that the schools themselves–public or private—would tire of the “outsized roles” on the part of both the ACC and NCAA and withdraw so they could play whom they want to play and where they want to play, politics be damned.
