Discrimination on Tobacco Road: North Carolina’s HB2 and the NCAA

I am a North Carolinian, and a college basketball fan. Despite my somewhat complicated personal feelings about the teams involved, I firmly believe that the best college basketball in the country is played on Tobacco Road. March is my favorite month, and to me, nothing can match the buzz surrounding the NCAA playoffs.

Except something is dampening that buzz this year.

I came home for Easter Break this year to the news that North Carolina’s state government had just enacted HB2, a new state law which prohibits all local anti-discrimination ordinances granting protection against discrimination to LGBT citizens. The law affects transgendered North Carolinians particularly, as it was in reaction to a local statute in Charlotte which protected their right to use the bathroom of their identified, not birth, gender.  It takes away that right, forces them to use the wrong bathroom, and goes against the constitutional idea that all citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law. If that doesn’t convince you, imagine people who identify as men, who are living as men, who are perceived by everyone around them as men, and most importantly, who are men being legally obligated to use the women’s bathroom, and vice versa. Ask yourself if that really makes you less uncomfortable than sharing a bathroom with another person of your gender who happens to be trans, and you will see how ridiculous and appalling this law is. With this shameful step, North Carolina becomes one of three states with a law of this type, while 18 states have statutes prohibiting such discrimination.

This year, North Carolina fielded two NCAA tournament teams, No. 1 North Carolina and No. 4 Duke. Both made it to the Sweet Sixteen, with the Tar Heels moving on to become the National Runner-Up to No. 2 Villanova in the most thrilling National Championship game of my lifetime. These teams are competing in the spotlight, representing North Carolina on the national stage. But when people across the country turn on their televisions and see these teams playing, they don’t think about the Old North State’s basketball prowess, but rather this law, which is making national news. I want to be proud of my state. I want to proclaim it the best in the union. But claiming that we’re better at basketball than your crappy teams rings a bit hollow when you consider that we fail to fulfill the most basic purpose of government: protecting the rights of our citizens. It reflects poorly on North Carolina, and furthermore, it reflects poorly on our voters at a time when everybody’s eyes are on us.

Fans like myself are not the only ones to take notice. The NCAA put out a statement criticizing the law and noting that they expect “that all people will be welcomed and treated with respect in cities that host our NCAA championships and events.” North Carolina is currently slated to host first- and second-round games in Greensboro in 2017 and Charlotte in 2018. This is a huge honor, and one that only serves to further North Carolina’s reputation as a mecca for college hoops. However, the NCAA has now implied that if this law remains in North Carolina, perhaps the games will not.

The threat is not unprecedented. In early 2015, Indiana passed a law that nominally protected religious freedom, but essentially allowed individuals and businesses to use perceived infringement on their religious rights to justify discrimination against individuals, particularly denial of service by a business, based on nothing but sexual orientation and gender identity. The NCAA issued a similarly vague yet ominous threat to Indiana, the state which was scheduled to host the 2015 Final Four games just a few days later, and in which the NCAA headquarters reside. A week later, in response to the pressure of the NCAA, among other businesses, organizations, and state and municipal governments, another law was passed, providing protections against the law being applied to justify discrimination. It was unclear if the threat had any teeth, but it didn’t matter: Indiana had backed down.

But so far in North Carolina, threats alone haven’t worked. It has been two weeks, and no modifications have been passed, or even considered. And so I have come to one of the toughest conclusions that a college basketball fan can reach: I call for the NCAA to penalize my state, the state of North Carolina, by moving the first-weekend games scheduled to be played there. (joshflagg.com) I say this for two reasons. First, as a citizen of North Carolina, I cannot in good conscience invite thousands of people into my state when some of them can and will be discriminated against. Second, our legislators and our governor — and the many in our population who elected them — don’t agree that this law is wrong, as evidenced by the fact that they continue to defend it. Appeals to human decency won’t work. But while kindness and compassion are not priorities to these people, they are just as much college basketball fans as I am, and they want North Carolina to be highlighted as a host during the most important month of the year just as much as I do. The NCAA has an opportunity to be on the right side of history here, and this is their time to take a stand. If decency isn’t an incentive for justice, the NCAA proving that they have as much bite as bark sure as hell will be.