NAACP calls on Black student-athletes to boycott Florida public colleges over anti-DEI policy

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC News

March 11, 2024, 9:00 AM EDT / Updated March 11, 2024, 10:53 AM EDT


The head of the NAACP is calling on Black student-athletes to reconsider their decisions to attend public colleges and universities in Florida, challenging a new state policy that bars those institutions from using government funds on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

In a letter sent Monday to current and future student-athletes of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NAACP leader Derrick Johnson implored college-bound Black athletes to “choose wisely.”

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion are paramount to ensuring equitable and effective educational outcomes,” Johnson said in a statement accompanying the letter, which was first reported by NBC News. “The value Black and other college athletes bring to large universities is unmatched.”

“If these institutions are unable to completely invest in those athletes, it’s time they take their talents elsewhere,” said Johnson, the civil rights organization’s president and chief executive. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed a bill that largely prohibits public colleges and universities from using state and federal funds on programs commonly grouped together under the acronym DEI.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/naacp-boycott-florida-colleges-black-athletes-dei-policy-rcna142549

[Initech]

1. The GOP has completely lost their damn minds.

[70sEraVet]

2. Good move on NAACP's part!

[Grins]

3. African-American athletes, take note. NM

[Harker]

4. That's one of a great number of reasons for anyone considering attending school there

to scratch Florida off their list.

Decisions have consequences.

[JoseBalow]

5. Sound advice

Florida is in a death spiral, and it is literally a sinking ship.

[Lunabell]

6. All athletes, not just black athletes.

Anyone with a conscience should not attend a Florida University. Not even my alma mater, FSU.

[Chi67]

7. Agreed

No one who values equality and fairness should be going to any college or university in Florida.

[SCantiGOP]

8. I started a new thread about this and referenced this post

I posted a letter to the editor I had written several months ago. Thought I'd also stick it here:
>>>Race in sports had a major impact on civil rights in the Deep South in the 1970s. All white Kentucky lost the basketball national championship in 1966 to Texas Southwest (now UTEP) with 5 black starters. In 1970, a time when Alabama and other Southern schools could not enroll black students, Bear Bryant's all white Alabama team lost badly to a Southern Cal team led by a black running back. Knowing that SEC sports would no longer be competitive without black players led to a grudging acceptance of desegregation by the coaches.
The current culture war being waged against discussion of race and past atrocities against African Americans, along with an increasing pushback against the LGBTQ community, may begin to hit home with the average voter when red state schools start losing premier athletes due to their regressive politics.
Let's see how Texas or Florida MAGAs react when the next great QB or 7 foot tall Center announces that he is retracting his long held intention to play at one of their schools, and is going instead to Michigan or UCLA because of the policies being enacted by Abbott and DeSantis and their proto-fascist legislatures.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Good letter!

Sports have had a number of ugly chapters throughout this country's modern history including the NFL, where those "feeder" colleges that become a critical source of players, knee-capped black players - https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2020/01/30/super-bowl-2020-nfl-isnt-commemorating-12-year-ban-black-players/4614669002/

I know the Rev. Jesse Jackson had made the battle against the abject racism in sports, whether at the player level or in the front offices, a decades-long project.

[maxrandb]

10. There needs to be so much more of this

It's pretty fucking simple;

Nothing will change. The racism, fascism, misogyny, hatred and white supremacy...NONE OF IT...will change, unless and until we make racism, fascism, misogyny, hatred and white supremacy UNPROFITABLE to the corporations, businesses and individuals that fund and enable it.

[Chi67]

11. Exactly.

You are 100% correct. Nothing changes until the money stops flowing.