NCAA may pull championship events from Mississippi over anti-transgender legislation
Mississippi’s colleges could miss out on the chance to host future NCAA championship events over the state’s law that will prevent transgender athletes from competing in school sports in accordance to their gender identity.
The NCAA announced Monday that it “unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports.”
The NCAA’s rules require testosterone suppression treatment for transgender women to compete in women’s sports and the organization said Monday that it “embraces the evolving science on this issue and is anchored in participation policies of both the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.”
Mississippi’s new law, which is set to go into effect on July 1, requires the state’s schools to designate teams by sex assigned at birth.
Gov. Tate Reeves posted on Twitter last month that the law would “protect young girls from being forced to compete with biological males for athletic opportunities.”
The NCAA did not explicitly say that Mississippi schools would be prevented from hosting postseason events like college baseball regionals or NCAA basketball tournament games, but the organization left the door open in Monday’s statement.
“When determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected,” the NCAA said in a statement. “We will continue to closely monitor these situations to determine whether NCAA championships can be conducted in ways that are welcoming and respectful of all participants.”
This isn’t the first time the NCAA has placed limitations on Mississippi over what it determined was a discriminatory environment.
The NCAA barred the state from hosting NCAA championship events that were determined in advance of a tournament from 2001-20 over the presence of the Confederate emblem on the state flag.
Last year, the NCAA took it a step further when it said that Mississippi would no longer be allowed to host any NCAA championship events as long as the state flag remained unchanged.
Reeves signed a bill to change the state flag in June 2020 and the state’s voters overwhelmingly approved a new design that omits the Confederate emblem in November.
Tennessee and Arkansas could also face the same restrictions from the NCAA after enacting similar legislation that requires athletes in school sports to compete in school sports according to their sex at birth.
