On
Wednesday, April 27 the NCAA announced that the Board of Governors was
instituting a new requirement for sites hosting or bidding on NCAA events. Current and future hosts for NCAA events will
be required to “demonstrate how they will provide an environment that
is safe, healthy, and free of discrimination,
plus safeguards the dignity of everyone involved in the
event.”
The
NCAA’s announcement comes in response to the recent rash of over 100 state laws
proposed or passed that single out LGBT people for discrimination. The NCAA had previously announced that it was
“monitoring” the situation in North Carolina where the most sweeping of these
laws was passed last month. With the announcement of their new requirement, the
NCAA finally broke its silence on the topic to belatedly join a chorus of other
private and public organizations and individuals speaking out against the
legalization of discrimination with boycotts, protests and strong public
statements against the law.
While
the NCAA announcement is a step in the right direction, it is a timid and
ambiguous step unbecoming a national organization that claims to promote “inclusiveness
in race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity as a vital
element to protecting the well-being of student-athletes, promoting
diversity in hiring practices and creating a culture of fairness.”
Some
media reports and LGBT rights organizations have inaccurately described the
NCAA announcement as an action that denies states that have enacted
discriminatory laws singling out LGBT people the opportunity to host NCAA
events. However, a close reading of the
NCAA announcement reveals that the new requirement actually is far less bold. The new requirement does not rule out the
selection of states with anti-LGBT laws as hosts of NCAA events. Instead it
asks potential hosts to demonstrate how they will “provide an environment that
is safe, healthy, and free of discrimination,
plus safeguards the dignity of everyone involved in the event.” How
this well-intended but vague directive will be implemented as part of the
bidding process is as yet undetermined.
The NCAA national office has been directed by the Board of Governors to
figure this out. If the Board of Governors intended the new requirement to mean
that the NCAA will not schedule events in states with discriminatory laws, they
need to make that intention clear instead of talking in general terms about requiring
demonstrations of attention to the safety, health, dignity and freedom from
discrimination of all spectators and participants.
The
ambiguity of the NCAA’s new requirement is particularly disappointing in light
of their clear policy denying schools that have offensive Native American
mascots and states that fly the confederate flag the right to host NCAA
events. I applaud the NCAA for using
their influence as a powerful national sports governing body to take a firm
public stance against these pernicious symbols of racism. The laws enacted in North Carolina, Missouri
and Tennessee, however, are more than symbols. These laws affect the legal
status of LGBT people and can have serious consequences for their safety,
well-being and quality of life. These laws deny an entire class of citizens the
right to live in a discrimination-free environment or the right to challenge
discrimination when it does occur. Surely, enacting laws that target a
particular group of people for discrimination warrants as strong a stand as the
NCAA has taken against symbols of injustice like Native American mascots and
the confederate flag.
The
new requirement leaves open the possibility that a state that has enacted
anti-LGBT laws may host an NCAA event as long as they provide the NCAA with an
explanation of how event sponsors intend to create a safe and discrimination-free
environment. Apparently, the NCAA expects the school or organization sponsoring
an NCAA event in these states to create a “safe zone” of some kind that ignores
state law. What would need to be
included in this safe zone? Certainly the facility where an event is held would
need to be included, but what about hotels, restaurants, private businesses, public
bathrooms, medical facilities and other public accommodations that spectators
and participants in an NCAA event use during an event?
Will
this cone of safety and non-discrimination extend to harassment on the sidewalk
or in parking lots around the sports arena, hotel or restaurant? How will this
safe zone be enforced in a state where it is perfectly legal to decline service
to LGBT people based on personal religious beliefs, where state law requires
that transgender people use the public toilet that aligns with their sex
assigned at birth rather than their gender identity or where LGBT people have
been explicitly excluded from protections against discrimination by state law?
The
new NCAA requirement raises these and other critical questions that need
answers. Perhaps the biggest question of all is how an organization that
professes to have a strong commitment to LGBT inclusion could settle on such an
ambiguous and weak statement. It is hypocritical to award NCAA events to states
with discriminatory laws. It is
unrealistic to believe that potential hosts for NCAA events can assure the NCAA
that they can provide a discrimination-free bubble for the event within the
broader climate of risk that LGBT people in that state face.
Perhaps
most disappointing, the NCAA has wasted an opportunity to stand firmly and
publicly against discrimination. This new requirement is an unacceptable,
unrealistic and empty bargain that allows the game to go on and enables the
NCAA to claim that it is acting on its stated organizational commitment to
diversity and inclusion. The NCAA can
and must do better than this if we are to take seriously their commitment to LGBT
inclusion.