What is House Bill 2?
By John Buhler
The ACC is pulling all of its championship games out of North Carolina because of House Bill 2. So what is House Bill 2 and why is the ACC so upset?
On Wednesday, the ACC decided that it would pull all of its championship games out of North Carolina in response to the discriminatory House Bill 2 put in place by the North Carolina legislature.
North Carolina has already lost the 2017 NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte in favor of New Orleans because of this piece of legislation. The state is home to four of the ACC’s 14 member institutions: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University in Durham, Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, and North Carolina State University in the state’s capital of North Carolina.
The most notable championship game being pulled from North Carolina has to be the ACC Football Championship, which is played annually at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. Why is the ACC pulling out of North Carolina? Here is what House Bill 2 is all about:
The Charlotte Observer writes that “on March 23, North Carolina’s legislature passed a sweeping law that reverses a Charlotte ordinance…that protected transgender people who use public restrooms based on their gender identity. The new legal also nullified local ordinances around the state that would have expanded protections for the LGBT community.”
In short, the nullification of the Charlotte ordinance by the North Carolina General Assembly forces transgender people to use public restrooms based on their biological sex rather than the gender with which they identify with.
When North Carolina could have been progressive and governor Pat McCrory could have vetoed House Bill 2, it now stands as a discriminatory piece of legislation that makes North Carolina look intolerant.
In the process, this will cost North Carolina opportunities to host major sporting events in the state. The ACC can look to relocate its title games to other metropolises besides Charlotte. Until North Carolina repeals House Bill 2, expect the ACC Football Championship to be in cities like Atlanta, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, Pittsburgh, or even Washington, D.C.
Next: Ranking The 25 Best Rivalries In College Football
Charlotte made the most geographical sense, but from an optics standpoint the ACC could not afford to keep hosting conference championship games in the Tar Heel State.