NAACP urges athletes to boycott southern US universities over voting rights

Organisation calls for Black athlete fan boycott over Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling and southern redistricting.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has called on Black athletes and fans to boycott public universities in the United States’ South, in opposition to redistricting efforts that dilute Black voting power.

The so-called “Out of Bounds” campaign, launched on Tuesday, calls on Black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to “withhold athletic and financial support” from major public universities in states that “have moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation”.

Those include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina, all southern states that have redistricted or sought to redistrict in the wake of a US Supreme Court ruling gutting a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in April.

Voting rights advocates have said the ruling makes it more difficult to challenge congressional district maps that appear designed to weaken the voting power of Black and minority groups.

Black voters have historically skewed heavily Democratic, with Republican-controlled legislatures in the South leading the post-Supreme Court redistricting push.

A boycott by Black athletes would likely hurt powerhouse football and basketball programmes in the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference.

“Across the South, Black athletes have helped build some of the most profitable college athletic programs in America,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

He added that “generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, national television value, alumni donations, merchandising sales, ticket sales, and brand equity – much of it powered by Black football and basketball talent.”

“Black athletes should not be asked to generate wealth, prestige, and power for state institutions while those same states strip political power from Black communities,” Johnson said.

Several states have moved to redistrict in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, with some even pausing their primary votes to redraw maps.

Other states are expected to redistrict following this year’s midterm elections in November, which will determine control of the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

The Voting Rights Act was first passed in 1965 and sought to prohibit racist practices used in southern and some northern states to disenfranchise Black voters.