The NCAA on Tuesday “reluctantly”
ended its ban on holding championship games in North Carolina put in
place over the state's passage of House Bill 2.
Last week, Democratic Governor Roy
Cooper signed a compromise deal to repeal House Bill 2, the
beleaguered law that blocked cities from enacting LGBT protections
and prohibited transgender people from using the bathroom of their
choice. The law's passage last year led to an economic boycott of
the state. The new law, House Bill 142, repeals House Bill 2, but it
also leaves bathroom regulation to the state and enacts a moratorium
on local LGBT ordinances until December 1, 2020.
(Related: NC's
Roy Cooper signs deal to repeal anti-LGBT law.)
In a statement released Tuesday, the
organization said that the law's replacement had “minimally
achieved a situation where we believe NCAA championships may be
conducted in a nondiscriminatory environment.”
LGBT rights groups loudly disagreed.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said in
a statement that the NCAA was putting “people at risk.”
“After drawing a line in the sand and
calling for repeal of HB2, the NCAA simply let North Carolina
lawmakers off the hook,” said HRC President Chad Griffin.
Chris Sgro, executive director of
Equality NC, said that he was “disappointed” with the decision.
“It is disappointing to see the NCAA
backpedal after it stood strong against the deeply discriminatory
HB2,” Sgro said in a statement. “HB142 continues the same
discriminatory scheme put forward by HB2 and does little to protect
NCAA's players, employees and fans. The NCAA's decision has put a
seal of approval on state-sanctioned discrimination.”
While saying that “more work remains
to be done,” Democratic Governor Roy Cooper called the decision
“good news.”