Corporations Giveth, and Corporations Taketh Away

Sports-loving North Carolinians were treated to a rude shock last week when the NCAA announced that it would not hold any tournament games in the state to protest the anti-BGLTQ bill passed last year by the state’s legislature and signed by Governor Pat McCrory. More was to come: Two days later, the Atlantic Coast Conference relocated its neutral site championship games. For a state that is home to collegiate basketball powerhouses like Duke, the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State, and Wake Forest, these moves are a moral as well as an economic blow, and both the NCAA and the ACC should be commended for their resolve. They have joined dozens of major companies in denouncing the law—commonly known as House Bill 2—as a discriminatory abomination that deserves swift repeal. Still, while the sports boycotts in particular are good moves that underscore the legislation’s harmful effects, we should exercise caution before heaping unqualified praise on all of North Carolina’s corporate critics.

Despite the complicated relationship many businesses have with H.B. 2, the importance of the boycott by collegiate sports is noteworthy. In the face of severe criticism from the likes of Franklin Graham, the NCAA and the ACC have made clear that the values of the great educational institutions they represent demand a far more inclusive vision from elected leaders. Systematically undoing local anti-discrimination ordinances and forcing transgender people to use a particular restroom clearly incompatible with their gender identity rails against such a vision. Should Harvard have the opportunity to play in NCAA tournaments in sports from fencing to basketball in the coming months, it will do so as part of an organization that has taken a strong stand for equality.

This move, however, will not come without collateral damage. It will harm working North Carolinians who should have benefited from the investment and jobs these sporting events would have brought to their state. While moral considerations alone should have prevented H.B. 2 from being drafted in the first place, we hope that its economic effects will now encourage supporters to rethink and repeal it.

One crucial aspect of the economic pressure levied against North Carolina is the campaign undertaken by dozens of large corporations to pressure legislators and the governor to undo H.B. 2. Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, and Bank of America, among many others, have all signaled deep disapproval of the law, and PayPal cancelled plans for a 400 job global operations center in Charlotte. These corporate actions are, like the NCAA and ACC boycotts, crucial parts of the struggle to get H.B. 2 off the books.

But the story of corporate involvement in the law is, sadly, more complicated. As the Charlotte Observer’s Editorial Board has pointed out, H.B. 2 included a provision that ended employees’ rights to file discrimination suits in state court, a change which large corporations have a vested interest in preserving. When the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce finally proposed minor changes to the law, it advocated restoring that right to sue but adding intermediary steps, and did not even demand changes to the provisions forcing transgender North Carolinians to use the wrong bathrooms. Even more ironically, some companies that have denounced the law donated to Republican political action committees that supported candidates who voted for H.B. 2.