Public Radio for the Piedmont and High Country
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Greensboro Swim Meet Shows HB2 Backlash Not Over

Action from the 2014 Winter National Swimming Championships at the Greensboro Aquatic Center. The center will host the NCAA Division III swimming championships this month, but some teams will likely be flying in and staying elsewhere because of a New York travel ban to North Carolina that followed the passage of HB2. (AP Photo/Bob Leverone, file)

The Greensboro Aquatic Center will host the NCAA 2019 Division III Swimming Championships this month, bringing in college teams from across the country. But teams from one state won't be staying in the Gate City.

It's a throwback to the controversy over HB2, the North Carolina law that limited protections for LGBT people.

Its passage sparked a swift backlash that saw many events leave the state. A compromise bill passed in 2017 led many sports groups to reconsider. That included the NBA, which had moved its celebrity-studded All-Star game from Charlotte but brought it back this year.

Not everyone was swayed by the compromise law though. New York's governor signed an executive order in 2016 banning non-essential state funded travel to North Carolina.

It's still in effect, which means swimmers and divers from the State University of New York at Geneseo who qualified for the championships won't be able to stay in Greensboro. They'll be able to compete, but will likely be staying in motel rooms in Virginia, more than an hour away.

Two other New York colleges are also affected by the ban.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

Support quality journalism, like the story above,
with your gift right now.

Donate