The NAACP is speaking out about the recent Supreme Court decision affecting Black voting rights and is using college sports to make a stand.
Tuesday morning, the organization announced the “Out Of Bounds” campaign, which calls for Black student-athletes and stakeholders to withdraw financial support from public universities in states that have moved to limit, weaken, or erase Black voting representation.
The campaign is targeting flagship public institutions in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama.
“The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice,” NAACP CEO and president Derrick Johnson said in the organization’s statement.
NAACP wants Black athletes to consider HBCUs
The campaign also calls to action Black athletes to make three considerations, including:
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- Black athletes and recruits are asked to withhold commitments from targeted programs, to ask coaches and athletic directors where their universities stand on voting rights, and to visit and seriously consider HBCUs.
- Current college athletes are asked to use their platforms to elevate the issue, to ask institutional leadership for public statements opposing racial vote dilution, and to consider all available options under the transfer portal.
- Fans, alumni, donors, and consumers are asked to stop purchasing tickets, merchandise, and licensed apparel from targeted programs and to redirect that spending to HBCUs — their athletics programs, scholarship funds, NIL collectives, bands, and alumni foundations.
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“Out Of Bounds is our answer; we are naming the contradiction, and we are calling on Black athletes, families, fans and consumers to act on it. The same power that built these programs can be redirected. And it will be.” -
