As a lifetime NAACP member, it is ‘Out of Bounds’ for playing politics with football
The NAACP, once the vanguard of the fight for equal justice under the law, has launched a campaign called "Out of Bounds." Its goal: pressure Black athletes, fans, and donors to boycott college football programs in southern states over congressional redistricting disputes.
What does college football have to do with redistricting? Absolutely nothing. This is not civil rights advocacy. It is the weaponization of a beloved American pastime — and the economic leverage of Black athletic talent — for raw partisan gain.
As a life member of the NAACP, former Indiana attorney general, and prosecutor who has spent decades committed to equal justice, I write with sorrow and anger. The organization that helped dismantle Jim Crow is now entangling amateur sports in the culture wars, turning gridirons into political battlegrounds and risking the very opportunities it claims to defend.
The NAACP’s targets are predictably one-sided: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina. These Republican-led states have adjusted maps following recent Supreme Court rulings limiting racial gerrymandering. Yet the NAACP remains silent on Democratic-led efforts in blue states. California aggressively redrew maps to favor Democrats, netting potential gains. Virginia’s Democratic attempt to reshape districts for partisan advantage was blocked by its own state Supreme Court.
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This selective focus exposes the campaign as politics, not principle. Redistricting battles occur nationwide. Singling out red states and the South reeks of regional and political scapegoating rather than consistent advocacy for fair maps.
The contradiction deepens with the NAACP’s opposition to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The organization condemns requirements for proof of citizenship and stronger ID measures as racist voter suppression, while championing the creation and preservation of Black voting blocs and Black congressional districts.
This smells of segregation by another name. The NAACP fought for decades to eliminate racial classifications in voting and representation. Now it defends them. True equality under the law means colorblind districts drawn on traditional principles — compactness, contiguity, and communities of interest — not engineered racial majorities that treat voters as demographic pawns. Demanding race-based districts while blocking basic election security measures undermines public confidence and the organization’s own history.
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Founded in 1909 amid the horror of lynchings and the Springfield race riot, the NAACP brought together Black and White Americans to combat violence, segregation and disenfranchisement. Its legal strategy produced landmark victories: Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. It stood for equality, not perpetual racial grievance.
Over the past five decades, however, the NAACP has increasingly fronted for the liberal left. The results in Black urban America — family breakdown, failing schools, persistent poverty — speak for themselves. By prioritizing partisan power plays over universal principles, the organization has eroded its credibility as an honest broker.
This "Out of Bounds" effort marks a new low: turning college football, a merit-based arena where talent and hard work transcend race, into a racially charged financial heist. Black athletes drive billions in revenue for flagship programs. Threatening boycotts to extract political concessions treats those athletes as props, not individuals pursuing excellence. It echoes the very racial intimidation the original NAACP opposed — now deployed where race is irrelevant to the enterprise.
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College football should unite, not divide. It offers young men from all backgrounds discipline, education and opportunity. Dragging it into redistricting fights disserves athletes, fans and the cause of genuine equality.
The NAACP owes its members, its history, and the country better. Return to the principles of 1909: equal justice, not engineered outcomes. Stop politicizing sports. Focus on real barriers to opportunity — family structure, education, culture — rather than scapegoating maps in red states while ignoring blue-state gamesmanship.
America’s greatest civil rights victories came through moral suasion and universal principles, not boycotts of Saturday afternoons in the fall. The NAACP’s brand is too valuable, its legacy too hard-won, to squander on this divisive stunt.