Jeffries backs NAACP call for college sports boycott over voting rights

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries amplified calls for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that have enacted voting restrictions, describing the moment as unprecedented and requiring an unprecedented response.

The NAACP launched its “Out of Bounds” campaign targeting eight states—Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia—whose athletic programs generate more than $100 million in annual revenue, following a Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act.

Jeffries specifically called out the Southeastern Conference, noting that 12 of its 16 member schools are located in the targeted states.

“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,” Jeffries said during a press briefing Tuesday in Washington. “And we believe that the silence of these institutions is complicity, and we will not stand for it.”

The campaign urges football and basketball recruits to withhold commitments to programs in those states until fair congressional maps and meaningful Black representation are restored, and calls on current athletes and coaches to use their platforms to elevate voting rights causes.

It also asks fans, alumni, and donors to stop financially supporting those programs. The SEC is home to nine of the 15 highest-valued athletic programs in the country, according to CNBC, led by Texas at $1.48 billion.

Athletes at Missouri and Mississippi, both SEC schools, have previously led successful campaigns pressuring universities and state governments on social justice issues, and Jeffries referenced Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, and Jackie Robinson.

“For us to get through this moment of backlash and usher in a new era of progress, as has been done by generations in the past, it’s going to require character, it’s going to require courage and it’s going to require conviction,” Jeffries said. “This is a Bill Russell moment. It’s a Muhammad Ali moment. And it’s a Jackie Robinson moment.”

Jeffries and members of the Congressional Black Caucus also voiced opposition to the Score Act, a bipartisan bill setting national standards for college athlete compensation, to protest universities’ silence on voting rights, leading House Republicans to postpone a vote on the legislation for the second time in less than a year.

“The Congressional Black Caucus cannot support legislation benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent while Black voting rights and Black political power are being systematically dismantled across the South,” said Rep. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat. “Institutions that profit from Black talent and Black communities have a responsibility to stand with those communities when their fundamental rights are under attack.”