The NAACP is calling on Black families, donors, and athletes to boycott college sporting events in states that refuse to draw racially gerrymandered Congressional districts, unveiling a new pressure campaign in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision striking down race based redistricting, according to The College Fix.
The civil rights organization launched "Out of Bounds," an initiative intended to exert economic and political pressure on Republican led states to preserve Congressional maps that the Supreme Court has now ruled unconstitutional. The Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision in late April determined that states can no longer draw district lines for the explicit purpose of advantaging one racial group over another.
The College Fix reported that the NAACP singled out eight priority states for its campaign. Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia all landed on the list. The organization declared its intention to target "flagship public athletic programs generating more than $100 million in annual revenue that continue to recruit Black athletes while their state governments dismantle the political power of Black communities."
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson characterized the situation as a crisis demanding swift response. "What these states have done is not a policy disagreement. It is a sprint to erase Black political power," Johnson stated in a news release.
"These actions happened in days, in some cases in hours, of a Supreme Court ruling that gives extremist lawmakers a playbook to erode Black representation," Johnson continued.
He expanded on his remarks. "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. 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 organization outlined specific demands for different groups. Black athletes and recruits are asked to withhold commitments from the targeted programs, to question coaches and athletic directors about their universities' positions on voting rights, and to give serious consideration to attending HBCUs instead. Current college athletes are encouraged to leverage their platforms to publicize the issue, push institutional leadership for public statements opposing racial vote dilution, and explore transfer options. Fans, alumni, donors, and consumers are instructed to stop buying tickets, merchandise, and licensed apparel from the targeted programs and redirect that spending toward HBCUs.
This campaign marks the NAACP's second attempt to weaponize college athletics against Republican governed states. In 2024, the group called for a similar boycott of Florida over a range of legislation including bans on DEI instruction in taxpayer funded schools and protections for preborn babies.
That effort yielded no measurable results, The College Fix found. An analysis by the outlet revealed that none of the top 35 Black basketball and football athletes committed to Florida universities chose to leave their programs in response to the boycott call.
The NAACP's latest campaign exposes an organization committed not to civil rights but to stoking racial division and subverting the constitutional order whenever courts rule against its preferred outcomes. Groups that exist primarily to inflame racial tensions, demand illegal government actions, and punish states for adhering to Supreme Court precedent have no legitimate place in American civic life. These divisive organizations should be stripped of their undeserved influence, denied access to the institutions they seek to corrupt, and ultimately disbanded so that Americans of all backgrounds can pursue genuine unity rather than manufactured grievance.
