Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
JIM DAVENPORT
Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. - A Confederate heritage group plans to challenge the NCAA's ban on championship events in South Carolina as long as the Confederate flag flies on the grounds of the state capitol.
The NCAA in 2001 barred any of its postseason tournaments from South Carolina. The organization is considering a request from the Black Coaches Association to extend the ban to sports where teams earn a chance to host playoff games, like baseball or football.
The NCAA has "no business getting involved in the politics of this or any other state," Randy Burbage, commander of the South Carolina division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said Wednesday. "The NCAA should stick to sports - something they should know something about - and stay out of politics in South Carolina."
Added Gene Hogan, one of group's leaders: "March Madness has turned into malicious meddling."
Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans are male descendants of veterans who served in the Confederate forces during the Civil War.
NCAA spokesman Bob Williams said his organization wants to "ensure that our championships are free from any type of symbolism that might make someone uncomfortable based on their race."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has been boycotting the state since 2000 when the Confederate flag was on a flagpole atop the dome and hanging in House and Senate chambers.
Christopher Sullivan, the national Sons of Confederate Veterans' top officer, said lawyers are looking at the NCAA ban from several perspectives, including whether it is an illegal secondary boycott or violates interstate commerce law or constitutional equal protection rights.
Burbage said it's an illegal secondary boycott because colleges have no control over whether or where the flag flies.
In 2002, then state Attorney General Charlie Condon sued the NAACP over what he called illegal secondary boycotts when the civil rights group set up "border patrols" of picketers at the state line, encouraging people not to spend money or stay in the state. He later dropped the lawsuit.
Current Attorney General Henry McMaster hasn't looked at the issue of secondary boycotts, spokesman Trey Walker said.