Sportscaster calls for Justice probe of NCAA for imposing ‘transgender ideology’

by WorldTribune Staff, February 8, 2017

Once confirmed, Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions should stand against the “cartel-like” NCAA in its bid to impose transgender laws on Americans, an ex-sportscaster and former NFL player said.

“I certainly hope the Attorney General — when he takes office — lets them know that everything is on the table, [such as items] that would benefit the student athletes and the general public as well,” former ESPN analyst Craig James told Breitbart News.

Craig James. /AP

The renewed campaign for the “transgender ideology” by the university chiefs who run the NCAA justifies a broad review by the federal government of the NCAA’s “cartel-like” practices, said James, who left broadcasting in 2011 to run for the U.S. Senate.

The Justice Department review should include the NCAA’s practice of “paying millions of dollars to coaches while providing only low-cost educational subsidies to the hard-working athletes who generate the revenue for the universities’ sports teams,” he said.

Once Sessions is confirmed, “I’m sure he would like to take a look [because] the student athletes really need a voice at the table,” James said.

“Maybe this [NCAA transgender threat] will be for the good of college athletes,” he said, adding “why is the NCAA in the business of …. forcing politics on other people?”

The transgender issue is back in the news because the NCAA is set to boycott North Carolina for several years unless the state legislature repeals the House Bill 2 “bathroom bill,” the Breitbart report said.

The HB-2 law says the legislature has the authority to set rules for how adults change their legal sex and their birth certificates. The law also says adults can change their documents, but only after undergoing medical procedures.

This clear rule for switching legal sex was adopted after the city of Charlotte established a “gender fluid” ordinance which allowed people to switch their legal sex from day to day, and to use male or female public bathrooms as they prefer.

In 2016, the NCAA’s pro-transgender advocacy was strongly backed by President Barack Obama and his deputies at the Department of Justice. “Transgender men are men — they live, work and study as men. Transgender women are women — they live, work and study as women,” Vanita Gupta, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civic regulation division, said in a May press conference.

Once confirmed, Sessions is unlikely to continue the Obama administration’s pro-transgender ideology.

On Feb. 6, the North Carolina Sports Association predicted massive economic losses if the NCAA continues its boycott of the state. According to a letter from Scott Dupree, of the N.C. Sports Association and Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance:

“In a matter of days, our state’s sports tourism industry will suffer crushing, long-term losses and will essentially close its doors to NCAA business. Our window to act is closing rapidly.”

Gov. Roy Cooper cited the letter in calling for elimination of HB-2, according to the Charlotte News Observer.

“There is an urgency to get House Bill 2 repealed … If there was ever a time for bipartisanship it was now, a chance to get this stain off our state, a chance to end discrimination and a chance to bring these hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs back to our state,” Cooper said.

Dallas Woodhouse, director of the North Carolina Republican Party, told reporters that “a simple repeal does not have a possibility of passing this legislature.”

“It seems to us that it is up to Gov. Cooper … to put forward something that can pass. If not, he’s just pounding his fist, and he’s helping determine North Carolina’s fate when it comes to the NCAA, the ACC and other issues,” Woodhouse said.

An April 2016 poll by Civitas showed that only 7 percent of 600 North Carolinians supported a judge’s demand “ordering girls and boys in public middle schools to share locker room, bathroom and shower facilities.” The demand was strongly opposed by 72 percent of respondents.

In December 2016, a poll showed that only 22.7 percent of respondents endorsed the claim that people should be allowed to change their recorded sex or “gender identity” on government documents whenever they wish. In contrast, 44.6 percent of respondents said people should be allowed to switch their legal sex, but only after first complying with medical or government criteria for male and female characteristics. Twenty-three percent opposed any sex-related change to identity documents, and 17.1 percent declined to answer.

The poll was conducted by Ipsos for the Williams Institute, a pro-transgender advocacy group at UCLA.

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