The NAACP on Tuesday urged black athletes to boycott college sports across eight Southern states, due to allegations that they are undercutting minority voting rights through redistricting efforts.
The civil rights organization launched a campaign targeting public universities in Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia, which have redrawn or moved to redraw their political maps. NAACP alleged such moves were meant to “limit, weaken, or erase Black voting representation,” and said the Out of Bounds campaign is aimed at targeting flagship public athletic programs in those states that recruit Black athletes and generate more than $100 million in annual revenue.
“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 President Derrick Johnson said. “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.”
The redistricting debate was triggered last summer, when Texas passed a new congressional map aimed at boosting the Republican Party’s power in the House, after pressure from President Donald Trump. The move sparked pushback from Democrats, who swiftly launched their own gerrymandering efforts in states such as California. In the months since, Democrats and Republicans have competed to see which party can pick up the most seats in Congress by redrawing political boundaries in House districts across the country.
A recent Supreme Court decision boosted Republicans’ efforts to do just that. The Louisiana v. Callais ruling established that states should be given more freedom to draw political maps without prioritizing racial outcomes. It questioned the constitutionality of drawing up political boundaries based on race, weakening the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which some states had used to draw up majority-minority districts.
When several states, such as Tennessee, moved to eliminate traditionally Democratic majority-minority districts, in light of the ruling, citing concerns about racial gerrymandering, some Democrats attacked the position as racist and a return to the Jim Crow era.
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The NAACP claimed the court’s decision “gives extremist lawmakers a playbook to erode Black representation.”
On Tuesday, the organization said it is calling on top football and basketball recruits currently being actively recruited by targeted programs to withhold their commitments until the eight Southern states “restore fair congressional maps and meaningful Black representation.” NAACP’s No Bounds campaign also called on current college athletes to consider transferring to another school and “use their platforms and NIL reach to elevate fair maps and voting rights.”