NAACP pushes boycott of SEC, ACC schools. How feasible is the movement?
The NAACP is pushing for athletes to boycott some SEC and ACC schools amid a Supreme Court decision. How feasible is this to causing change?
A new campaign launched by the NAACP calls for a boycott of some of college sports’ most prominent athletics programs in response to a national redistricting fight that represents “a sprint to erase Black political power,” the organization's president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement. On April 29, the U. S.
Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana’s recently redrawn congressional map marked an unconstitutional gerrymander along racial lines by creating a majority-Black district. “The decision was a devastating blow to critical civil rights protections by permitting states to use partisan gerrymandering as a wholesale excuse to deny Black voters a voice in their government,” the Legal Defense Fund wrote in response.
The NAACP campaign, called “Out of Bounds,” takes aim at eight states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — and 13 specific athletics programs that generate at least $100 million annually “from national television deals, alumni donations, merchandise sales, and ticket sales,” the association said. Those schools are Alabama. Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Florida State, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Clemson, Tennessee, Texas and Texas A&M.
The “Out of Bounds” campaign asks the nation’s top football and basketball prospects being recruited by these universities to “withhold their commitments until the states in question restore fair congressional maps and meaningful Black representation” and for current student-athletes playing at these schools to “consider their options, including the transfer portal. ” “This generation of Black athletes understands something that those who came before them were never afforded the chance to say so plainly: your talent is yours, and so is your community's political power,” said Tylik McMillan, the national director of the association’s Youth and College Division. In addition, the campaign asks prominent recruits to “visit and seriously consider” historically black colleges and universities.