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NCAA sets deadline for N.C. to repeal bathroom bill

Championship events on line

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In its most direct statement yet, the NCAA warned North Carolina to repeal House Bill 2 soon or lose championship events through 2022.

“As the state knows, next week our various sports committees will begin making championships site selections for 2018-2022,” the NCAA said in a statement. “Once the sites are selected. those decisions are final.” The NCAA plans to announce sites April 18.

The statement came on HB2’s first anniversary. It also came as lawmakers and the governor remain at an impasse over repeal, though legislative leaders said they’re talking about changes in the law.

Last weekend Duke and the University of North Carolina played their first-round NCAA tournament games in Greenville, S.C., after the games were moved from Greensboro. NCAA officials moved events “because of the cumulative impact HB2 had on local communities’ ability to assure a safe, healthy, discrimination-free atmosphere,” the organization said.

“Absent any change in the law, our position remains the same regarding hosting current or future events in the state.”

The NBA moved its 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte because of the law. The Atlantic Coast Conference also moved events out of state, including its football championship that had been scheduled for Charlotte.

In a statement, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper again called for repeal.

“I have offered numerous compromises and remain open to any deal that will bring jobs and sports back to North Carolina and begin to repair our reputation,” he said. “Legislative Republicans have been all too happy to use their supermajorities to pass damaging partisan laws. It’s time for them to step up, meet halfway, and repeal HB2.”

Asked about the legislature’s timeline for HB2 changes, House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, said the issue was the subject of lengthy GOP caucus meetings Wednesday and Thursday.

“We’re taking whatever time is necessary,” he said. “We’re not going to move forward until a majority of the caucus is prepared to do something.”

Moore said he’s been talking with business leaders and others, and that “if I didn’t have pretty good assurances” the potential HB2 changes would end boycotts, “I wouldn’t be wasting my time.”

“I think a lot of companies and other entities that initially signed onto these bans are having a little bit of buyer’s remorse and are themselves looking for a way to get out of this mess,” he added.

Moore said legislative leaders won’t be “backing off of the privacy issues” at the center of HB2.

The law was put in place in response to a Charlotte nondiscrimination ordinance that would have allowed transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with. The ordinance, which was repealed in December as part of a failed repeal deal, drew opposition from conservatives who said it would allow men to enter women’s bathrooms.

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