Minnesota travel ban forces college baseball teams to skip national championships in North Carolina
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| English: State seal of North Carolina (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton’s ban on state employee non-essential travel
to North Carolina over the state’s bathroom privacy law prevents college
baseball players from participating in two national championship tournaments
there, the Minnesota State College and Universities system (MnSCU) has
announced.
In a May 3 email to MnSCU trustees, Chief Marketing and Communications
Officer Noelle Hawton announced:
On April 2,
Governor Dayton directed that all state employees cease all nonessential state
business travel to North Carolina until further notice. On May 2, the
Minnesota State College and Universities presidents met and expressed their
support for Governor Dayton. The presidents have concluded that
athletics-related travel is non-essential for purposes of this directive.
While we understand that some players may be disappointed, no sports team from
any of our colleges or universities will participate in tournaments in North
Carolina this spring.
“We have Division II and Division III baseball teams that may qualify to
play in national tournaments scheduled to be held in North Carolina yet this
spring,” the email sent on behalf of Hawton said. “The MnSCU presidents
whose schools are members of the Minnesota College Athletic Conference
submitted a letter…to the National Junior College Athletic Association requesting
that the association move the national championship out of the state of North
Carolina. The association declined.”
North Carolina’s bathroom privacy law, which prevents men from accessing
women’s bathrooms and vice versa, has caused a number of states to ban official
non-essential travel to North Carolina. The Department of Justice
recently said that this law is in violation of Title IX of the Civil Rights
Act, meaning North Carolina could lose up to $2 billion in federal
funding.
Minnesota Senator Al Franken (D) praised MnSCU’s decision:
“I think it’s regrettable that our governor is playing games like this
and has taken this kind of action to oppose what we regard as a very common
sense policy that North Carolina has implemented to protect the safety and
privacy of women and children in public facilities,” John Helmberger, CEO of
Minnesota Family Council, told LifeSiteNews.
“We’ve expressed our concern to the governor about this decision [to ban
non-essential travel],” said Helmberger. “In fact, we’ve raised the
question: does this mean that the governor does not want to protect the safety
and privacy…of women and children in Minnesota? And should other states
be banning travel to Minnesota because they’re concerned about the safety and privacy
of women and children here?”
“We believe that it’s possible to address in a compassionate way…the
needs of people who suffer from gender confusion,” Helmberger continued.
“That is real suffering and we’re not minimizing that in the least. We
think it’s possible to address their needs in a way that also respects the
privacy and safety of everyone, and we think a solution like that is attainable
and we should work together to achieve it.”
Gov. Dayton’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
