NBA back in Charlotte after political feud
Gender discrimination bill, partially repealed, fueled leagues to pull games from N. Carolina
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As the NBA prepares for All-Star Game festivities this weekend in Charlotte, the backdrop to the celebration is unequivocally political, as nearly everything in the divided state seems to be these days.
The event was supposed to be in Charlotte in 2017. But in March 2016, the Republican-controlled legislature passed a law, known as House Bill 2, that invalidated local government ordinances establishing anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. It required people in publicly owned buildings to use restrooms that corresponded with the gender listed on their birth certificate.
Supporters called the law a necessary public safety measure but opponents condemned it as intolerant, and a backlash emerged, chasing away businesses, conventions and concerts and testing sports leagues normally averse to political debates.
The NBA moved the All-Star
Game from Charlotte to New Orleans. The NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference removed championship games and tournaments from the state, a stunning blow given the hold college basketball has over North Carolina.
Political scientists say the law contributed to the governor at the time, Pat McCrory, a Republican, losing his subsequent re-election by just 10,000 votes.
“There was a sense that the election was a referendum on HB 2, and a verdict was rendered,” said Pope McCorkle, a professor of public policy at Duke University and a former Democratic political consultant. A year later, with the NCAA saying the state had 48 hours to change the law or lose the chance to host any NCAA championship games through 2022, HB 2 was partially repealed.
That was enough for the NBA
and it has allowed Charlotte to present itself as a welcoming place, however much some activists believe the repeal did not go far enough.
For sports organizations, the partial repeal allowed them to return to the state. Within weeks the NCAA and ACC returned championship games to North Carolina, and the NBA awarded Charlotte the 2019 All-Star Game. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he understood concerns that the repeal wasn’t enough, but believed it eliminated “the most egregious aspects of the prior law.”
That the NBA and the NCAA found themselves in the middle of a pitched political brawl in the Tar Heel state was fitting. Sports have long been intertwined with politics in North Carolina.
Kenan Memorial Stadium, where the University of North Carolina’s football team has played for 90 years, was named for William R. Kenan, a 19thcentury merchant who led the massacre of dozens of black residents of Wilmington. In 2018, the university decided to name the stadium for his son, William R. Kenan Jr., a former university trustee and businessman.
In the 1960s, Dean Smith, the longtime coach of North Carolina’s basketball team, was a force for integration and civil rights in the state. More recently, former North Carolina athletes helped end plans to return a Confederate monument to campus.
Activists and Democratic politicians praise the role sports organizations played in overturning HB 2, but only to a point. The partial repeal overturned the bathroom portions of the law, but largely left the other provisions intact. They see it as a less discriminatory law that is far from perfect.
“Philosophically it wasn’t the correct fix, but it achieved a good objective,” said Rep. Deb Butler, a Democrat and one of North Carolina’s few openly gay lawmakers.
Kathy Behrens, the NBA’s president of social responsibility, said the league has equality principles that each venue, vendor, hotel and other business the NBA works with for the All-Star Game is required to adhere to.
Among other requirements, she said, each partner must “ensure that any restroom it provides for its personnel or the general public will be open for use by all individuals consistent with their gender identities.”
Some states, including New York and California, maintain bans against any official state travel to North Carolina. A lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging portions of the bill is pending.
North Carolina’s political battles continue. The Supreme Court will rule this year on partisan gerrymandering, and one of the North Carolina’s seats in the House of Representatives remains vacant because of credible voter fraud allegations. A bloody state budget battle looms.
For the moment, though, sports is not on the docket.