The Colonial Athletic Association made a decision about how House Bill 2 will affect its championship events in North Carolina, with the impact not being felt on Elon University's campus for now.
The conference will send a letter to Governor Pat McCrory expressing "strong opposition" of HB2, which will call for its appeal immediately. In addition, the 2017 women's golf championships will be moved from the St. James Plantation golf course in Southport if the bill is not repealed by Jan. 10, 2017, with the conference already beginning to look into alternate options.
The CAA will have its Council of Presidents meeting on that day, and will decide the fate of the golf championships and two on-campus events there. Elon is slated to host the tennis championships on April 20-23, 2017, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington is supposed to host the baseball championships on May 24-27.
UNCW will still host the volleyball championships from November 18-20 this season, as the conference decided not to break its policy of the previous season's champion hosting the tournament. In addition, both Elon and UNCW would be allowed to host soccer championship events if the teams earns the right to host them based on their standing in conference play.
In a statement, CAA commissioner Joe D'Antonio said, “Today we were able to work collaboratively as a membership to discuss and review a very complex and complicated situation, because diversity and inclusion are such important principles at all ten of our full member institutions. Our decisions express the desire of our Conference to stand up against discriminatory practices, while also making sure that the student-athletes of the CAA, as well as all people that take part in our championships, are provided with a tremendous experience in a fair and non-discriminatory environment. Going forward we will continue to closely monitor all aspects of this situation and make additional future decisions with the best interests of our student-athletes, as well as with the commitment of our institutions to diversity and inclusion, in mind.”