ACC returns championship events to N.C. after state law changes
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper holds a press conference at the Executive Mansion in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, March 30, 2017, to announce that he signed a HB142, a compromise replacement bill for HB2, that the N.C. General Assembly passed earlier in the day. (Chris Seward/The News & Observer via AP)
The ACC Council of Presidents voted Friday that North Carolina may again host conference championships.
The decision comes a day after the North Carolina Legislature passed a measure that repeals House Bill 2, the controversial law that limited legal protections for the LGBTQ community. One element of HB2, as it is called, stated that people could only use a public restroom that corresponded to the gender on their birth certificates.
The ACC’s vote means the football championship game will return to Charlotte in 2018. In addition, all neutral-site championships that had existing contracts to play in North Carolina will return to the state for the duration of those deals, including women’s basketball, baseball, swimming and diving, and men’s and women’s golf.
The ACC has a contract to play its football championship game in Charlotte through 2019.
Last year, the ACC moved all of its neutral-site championship events outside the state because of the law. That included the ACC football championship, which was played in Orlando, Florida, in December.
The women’s basketball tournament will return to Greensboro after a one-year stop in South Carolina. The men’s basketball tournament, perhaps the league’s premiere event, already was slated for the second year in a two-year stay in Brooklyn, New York, before returning to North Carolina in 2019 (Charlotte) and 2020 (Greensboro).
The measure passed Thursday, considered a compromise, has left the LBGTQ community less than happy. Lawmakers can no longer govern who uses what bathroom or locker room, but the new legislation does not allow nondiscrimination laws passed before HB2 to go back into effect, nor does it permit local governments to pass new antidiscrimination laws before Dec. 1, 2020.
The law also prohibits government agencies from establishing transgender-friendly bathrooms and locker rooms.
In January, commissioner John Swofford said the ACC would be monitoring the future of HB2.
“We’ll just have to see how that plays out,” Swofford said at the time. “If something changes in the state of North Carolina, that would be welcomed. But our presidents made what they believe is a principled decision in that regard. I don’t see that principle changing.”
NCAA president Mark Emmert said Thursday that the organization’s board of directors will announce next week whether it will allow the return of NCAA championship games to the state.
“The board had four problems with that bill. They’ve removed some of those but not all of them,” Emmert said. “They’ve removed two or three, but is that enough?”
