NCAA's Pride Month tweet exposes cowardice bordering on 'performative allyship'

One tweet celebrating the beginning of Pride Month doesn’t excuse the NCAA’s shameful silence the other 364 days of the year.

The NCAA didn’t display any great moral courage last week when it chimed in alongside pretty much every other corporate entity in support of the LGBTQ community. If anything, its tweet exposed just how cowardly it’s been.

There has been a rash of anti-LGBTQ laws pushed through state legislatures in recent years. These laws that limit access to medical care, prohibit the mere mention of sexual orientation and gender identity, and roll back legal protections have no other purpose than to marginalize, and in some cases, erase LGBTQ people.

And what has the NCAA done in response? Other than post that tweet on June 1? Nothing. Not one thing to protect its athletes who are affected by these laws. It hasn’t publicly opposed any of the legislation or threatened to pull its high-profile events from states targeting the LGBTQ community.

It’s gone along as if it’s business as usual, as if some of its athletes aren’t under the very real threat of harm because politicians view them as an easy way to score political points.

“This seems to be a trend with the NCAA. They tend to make statements – and I think they are aiming to be inclusive – but they are not addressing the very real harms being done to the LGBTQ community and, particularly, NCAA athletes,” Anna Baeth, the director of research for Athlete Ally, told USA TODAY Sports.

“I don’t think I would go as far as to call it performative allyship,” Baeth said, “but it’s not far off.”

Making this all the more disappointing is that it wasn’t long ago the NCAA was proud to stand against bigotry and hate. It told South Carolina it would not allow championship events to be held in the state so long as the Confederate flag continued to fly at the capitol. It yanked NCAA men’s basketball tournament games from North Carolina after it passed a “bathroom bill” targeting transgender people.

And when Indiana passed a law in 2015 that sanctioned discrimination against LGBTQ people under the guise of “religious freedom,” then-NCAA president Mark Emmert wasted no time condemning it and suggesting the organization could move its headquarters and its championships as a result.

“The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committed to providing an inclusive environment for all our events,” Emmert said then. “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees.”

Emmert’s statement ignited a firestorm of protests, leading Indiana lawmakers to amend the law so LGBTQ people were protected.

How things have changed. And not for the better.

Now states are ramming through laws that trample on basic decency, if not the U.S. Constitution, and the NCAA’s silence is deafening.

“Our position on this issue is pretty clear, and our policy on it is to maximize what we believe is competitive fairness and inclusion,” new NCAA president Charlie Baker said Thursday after an appearance at the University of Arizona’s conference on “The Future of College Sports” in Washington.

“(NCAA) committees, when they make decisions about where we host events, the entities and the authorities and the sponsors and the hosts of those events have to commit to delivering a safe and what I would describe as comfortable environment for those who participate.”

And therein lies the problem. Baker is not affected by these laws, so who is he to say what is a comfortable environment and what is not?

He might not see any problems with holding a championship in Florida because it’s being run by the NCAA, not Gov. Ron DeSantis. An LGBTQ teenager or young twentysomething, especially one who is closeted, is likely to feel very different. Baker might not think the NCAA taking a stand will change anything. For LGBTQ athletes feeling targeted or marginalized, any show of support could be a lifeline.

“I’m hearing from athletes that are worried about it, but no one else is hearing about it because they’re terrified” to speak publicly, Baeth said. “And those feelings are valid.”

“Because of the geopolitical moment, it’s difficult for athletes to speak out,” she added. “I think the NCAA needs to be more actively engaged in this conversation so they can actually hear from student-athletes what’s going on. That’s the issue. There’s the divide.”