NAACP urges boycott of college sports in south over voting rights

The NAACP on Tuesday launched a campaign urging Black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to boycott athletic programs of public universities in states that “have moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation”.In the announcement of the “Out of Bounds” campaign, the civil rights giant name-checked eight states – Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Georgia – whose flagship public athletic programs generate more than $100m in annual revenue. Each of those states has moved to draw new maps to limit Black voting representation, following the supreme court’s Louisiana v Callais decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act.“What these states have done is not a policy disagreement. It is a sprint to erase Black political power,” Derrick Johnson, President & CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement. “The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice.”The campaign calls on football and basketball players who are currently being actively recruited by targeted programs to withhold their commitments until the states “restore fair congressional maps and meaningful Black representation,” to ask coaches and athletic directors at targeted programs where their universities stand on voting rights and to visit and seriously consider committing to athletic programs at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).Athletes who are already enrolled at targeted programs are being asked to use their platforms to elevate fair voting maps and voting rights, to ask their university’s leadership to release public statements opposing racial vote dilution and to consider their options – including entering the transfer portal.The campaign asks non-athletes, like fans, alumni and donors, to stop financially supporting targeted programs by not purchasing tickets, merchandise or licensed apparel. Instead, the NAACP asks them to use those resources to support athletic programs, scholarship funds, bands and alumni foundations at HBCUs.“The state that is working to erase your grandmother’s congressional district is the same state whose governor will stand on the field and celebrate your touchdown or game-winning shot,” Tylik McMillan, national director of the NAACP’s youth and college division, said in a statement. “We are asking young people – recruits, current athletes, fans – to see that connection clearly and to act on it. The Out of Bounds campaign is about redirecting what has always been ours, power and perseverance.”Recent history has seen some successful precedents for political pressure by athletes on their universities.In 2020, athletes in programs across Mississippi spoke out against the state’s flag, which, at the time, included the Confederate battle emblem. Mississippi ultimately changed the flag.And in 2015, members of the University of Missouri’s football team, including the coaching staff, joined a campus-wide student protest following racist incidents at the university. Black football players said that they would not participate in football related activities until the college’s president resigned.“Out of Bounds” is the latest response by voting rights activists since the Callais decision came down last month and states began redistricting.On Monday, the Congressional Black Caucus said it would oppose the Score Act, a bill to standardize athletes’ contracting rights nationwide. “The Congressional Black Caucus cannot support legislation benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent while Black voting rights and Black political power are being systematically dismantled across the South,” read a CBC statement.Over the weekend, thousands gathered in Montgomery, Alabama, for “All Roads Lead to the South,” a rally to promote voting rights. During the rally, multiple speakers called for mass protests and economic boycotts, strategies that have been successful in securing voting rights previously.