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ANALYSIS: No proof black athletes left Republican states in response to NAACP appeal
The NAACP failed to persuade black college athletes and allies to decommit from universities in Republican universities in the past several months, a College Fix analysis found.
In May 2026, the NAACP launched a sports boycott campaign against gerrymandering called “Out of Bounds.” The campaign calls upon “Black athletes, families, alumni, and fans to withhold athletic and financial support from public universities in southern states,” including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
The black advocacy group aimed to inflict financial pressure on states that opposed the illegal racial gerrymandering of election districts. The Supreme Court had ruled in March that states cannot create legislative districts in favor of a certain race.
The College Fix analyzed the 247 Sports page and found that between the launch of the campaign and the ensuing months, 67 athletes decommitted from sports, including football (2026 & 2027) and men’s/women’s basketball (2026 & 2027) recruiting classes.
Of the 67 students who decommitted, none cited the NAACP “Out of Bounds” as a reason.
Instead, many athletes cited “name, image, and likeness” deals, new scholarship opportunities, and hometown or coaching relationships as the reasons for their decisions.
Only eight of the decommits even left targeted states.
An Axios analysis also couldn’t find any student to decommit because of the NAACP boycott.
The Fix also did not find any measurable success with the boycott campaign, such as decreased ticket sales or increased student enrollment at historically black colleges and universities.
The only success the NAACP had with the campaign was political support from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Congressional Black Caucus.
Jeffries supported the NAACP efforts by doing a press conference stating, “we are here standing in solidarity with the NAACP and its call for athletes to boycott institutions within the SEC that belong to states that have unleashed these Jim Crow-like, racially oppressive tactics, which is unacceptable, unconscionable and un-American.”
The caucus opposed the Protect College Sports Act, but it still moved forward in the U.S. Senate and is pending in the U.S. House.
The Fix emailed the NAACP on September 14 and followed up with a voicemail on September 18. The Fix asked if it could provide any anecdotes or data on decommits following the campaign or any successes so far in this campaign. In addition, The Fix asked how many alumni or other supporters have pledged to boycott sports in red states.
The group has yet to respond. A similar boycott of Florida over its DEI policies also failed, The Fix previously reported.
The NAACP boycott drew criticism from former Indiana Attorney General and NAACP member Curtis Hill.
“I’m not surprised by the findings of your investigation that no athletes have apparently participated in the NAACP’s boycott,” Hill told The Fix via email. He’s an ambassador with Project 21 through the National Center for Public Policy Research.
He called the boycott “an ill conceived attempt to improperly politicize college athletics, and in particular black college athletes in so-called conservative, southern states, by suggesting a link between black college athletics and allegations of voter suppression.”
Hill added that it is “naive for the NAACP to believe that black college athletes would turn down scholarship money, NIL contracts, or a shot at the pros in order to facilitate a weak political message that requiring a voter to present a photo ID is somehow racially motivated.
“Boycotts don’t work if nobody boycotts!”
