Democrats, Pushing a Boycott of College Teams Over Redistricting, Find Few Willing To Play Ball

With college training camps approaching, Democrats are calling on black athletes, alumni, and fans to boycott the Southeastern Conference over redistricting. So far, the push is being met with a conference shrug as players prioritize their futures over scoring points in Washington.The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s “‘Out of Bounds’ campaign targets college sports power,” a columnist, Andrea Williams, wrote for the Tennessean on Wednesday. “But it misunderstands how and why Black athletes actually make decisions.” She wrote that “until” Historically Black Colleges and Universities “match career perks of” the conference, “Black athletes won’t go.”Wednesday at FoxNews.com, Indiana’s former attorney general, Curtis Hill, wrote that “college football” has “absolutely nothing” to do with redistricting. “This is not civil rights advocacy. This is the weaponization of a beloved American pastime — and the economic leverage of Black athletic talent — for raw partisan gain.”Mr. Hill, a member of the NAACP and a Republican, called the boycott “predictably one-sided.” Gerrymandering proposals in, say, California and Virginia — or New England, where all 21 Congressional districts are occupied by Democrats — are often given a pass if they deny seats to the GOP. The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, at the Capitol on September 25, 2025. J. Scott Applewhite/AP“These are real issues that need to be addressed,” a former NFL and University of Tennessee wide receiver, Donte Stallworth, told CNN last week. “But I think it’s difficult for me to push on these 18-year-olds, these 19-year-olds, to get them to make a decision of this magnitude at such a young age.”It may seem like the right play to mobilize college athletes against the Supreme Court’s decision, which declared race-based districts discriminatory. “Black voters in all age groups are overwhelmingly Democratic,” as Pew reported in an April 2024 survey. “But younger Black voters tend to be somewhat more Republican than older ones.”Earlier this month, Senator Timothy Scott wrote on X that he beat the son of the 1948 segregationist “Dixiecrat” presidential candidate, Senator Strom Thurmond, for a House seat. The Republican lawmaker then “won statewide in South Carolina, a majority white state” and the first to secede from the Union in 1860.Mr. Scott said that the Palmetto State “elects leaders based on ideas, not identity,” and that Democrats ought to “stop erasing reality to rig the game.” The numbers for Gen Z support his view. In January, Gallup found that 56 percent of those aged between 14 and 29 are independent, and Democrats enjoy just a ten-point lead over Republicans.Nevertheless, the House Democratic Leader, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, kept his message narrow at the Capitol last week. Flanked by the Congressional Black Caucus, he backed the NAACP’s “call for athletes to boycott institutions within the SEC that belong to states that have unleashed these Jim Crow-like, racially oppressive tactics.”Mr. Jeffries called GOP redistricting “unacceptable, unconscionable and un-American” and added that “the silence of” schools “is complicity,” meaning back the Democrats or you’re playing for the wrong team. The boycott targets universities in Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia.Together, athletic programs in those states account for over $100 million in revenue. Yet Georgia and South Carolina aren’t redistricting, and Alabama’s new map is being challenged in court. It’s also questionable how much invoking specters like “Jim Crow,” referring to discriminatory laws passed in Democratic states prior to the 1960s, resonates today.The NAACP’s hostility to Republicans and the CBC’s refusal to admit the GOP’s four black members further erodes the effort’s moral authority. The lack of enthusiasm can be seen as a sign of the Civil Rights Movement’s success, as was Mr. Jeffries standing at the podium as the Democratic Party’s prospective next speaker.A student entering college this fall grew up with black officials at every level of government. Justice Clarence Thomas joined the majority in the redistricting decision. President Obama won a Senate seat and two White House terms without need of gerrymandering. Discrimination persists, but it’s not a winning message to deny a century of progress.By joining the boycott, student athletes would risk scholarships and lucrative Name, Image, and Likeness deals. They’re choosing instead to seize the opportunities that would have been unthinkable a century ago and — like fans to alumni — they’re more concerned about winning games than winning House seats for Democrats.

Democrats, Pushing a Boycott of College Teams Over Redistricting, Find Few Willing To Play Ball

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