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NCAA to review bathroom bill repeal before deciding on North Carolina return

By The Sports Xchange
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Cooper signed a bill on Thursday that scaled back part of the controversial HB2 bill, which said transgender people would have to use the bathrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. File photo by Official Office of Governor Roy Cooper.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Cooper signed a bill on Thursday that scaled back part of the controversial HB2 bill, which said transgender people would have to use the bathrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. File photo by Official Office of Governor Roy Cooper.

The NCAA will decide next week whether to allow the return of championship games to North Carolina after the state repealed the so-called bathroom bill.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill on Thursday that scaled back part of the controversial HB2 bill, which said transgender people would have to use the bathrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates.

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The NCAA relocated seven championship events out of the state in the last year, including first-round games in this season's men's basketball tournament.

North Carolina's new law was considered a compromise by lawmakers, but some in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community feel it still contains language that will encourage and allow discrimination against them.

NCAA president Mark Emmert said his organization's board of directors will study the new law. The NCAA is set to select sites for championships in the 2018-2022 seasons next week. North Carolina has submitted bids for 133 NCAA championship events between 2018 and 2022.

"I'm personally very pleased that they have a bill to debate and discuss," Emmert in his news conference on Thursday preceding the Final Four in Glendale, Ariz. "The politics of this in North Carolina are obviously very, very difficult. But they have passed a bill now and it will be a great opportunity for our board to sit and debate and discuss it.

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"We made clear that absent any change in the law we weren't going back to North Carolina. They've changed the law. Now the question is ... whether or not this new bill has changed the landscape sufficiently that the board is comfortable in returning to North Carolina."

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