It is bound to happen within any activist group: A perceived offense arises that fits perfectly into the cause matrix of your organization. Emotional fervor wells up, and the desire to do something is instinctive. Next, you hatch a plan, but your desire for results is so ardent that pragmatism has no room for a berth. As a result, you forge ahead with your intentions, delivered with passionate, prolix speeches that sound credible.
But your grand plan withers under the barest inspection.
This is the current course of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and in keeping with tradition, they end up making noise but do not make much sense. The outrage du jour is over the redistricting fights taking place between the parties and how southern states are poised to redraw maps in response to the wave of blue state cartography alterations that have taken place. The outrage has two inherent flaws.
READ MORE: Dems Hoodwinking Themselves Makes Their Loss in VA Redistricting Battle Before Midterms Even Sweeter
Despite all of the accusatory shrieking, not a single black person is losing their right to vote. (Reuters was recently snagged by this, and had to delete a video it posted making that daft claim.) The second issue is that while the GOP redistricting efforts have been accused of every vile intention, Democratic Party redistricting is somehow free from venal motivations and results. Damned convenient, that.
So the NAACP hatched a plan. In order to… well, we are not entirely sure what they intend to happen, but the outfit has issued an impassioned plea that university student-athletes should scuttle any plans they have/had to play for schools in those southern states where redistricting is in play. The NAACP thinks there is a connection between the state legislatures with desires to influence their positions in Congress, and collegiate sports. This is beyond a stretch.
As Brad Essex detailed earlier, the intent is to have black student-athletes boycott schools in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and South Carolina. This is to be done to send a message to those states.
The NAACP is taking a stand. Today, we launch the #OutofBounds campaign, a national call to action for Black athletes, families, fans, and allies.
— NAACP (@NAACP) May 19, 2026
In response to states erasing Black voting representation after the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, we are demanding…
"What these states have done is not a policy disagreement. It is a sprint to erase Black political power," said Derrick Johnson, President & CEO, NAACP. "These actions happened in days, in some cases in hours, of a Supreme Court ruling that gives extremist lawmakers a playbook to erode Black representation. The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice. Out of Bounds is our answer: we are naming the contradiction, and we are calling on Black athletes, families, fans, and consumers to act on it. The same power that built these programs can be redirected. And it will be."
What exactly does the NAACP expect to happen as a result of this hoped-for nomadic athlete surge? It is fever-dream-level goal-setting.
The campaign will remain in effect until targeted states adopt state-level voting rights protections. (No voting rights have been affected, so these unspecified protections are unknown.)
Repeal maps that dilute Black voting power. (Those would be the maps that were ruled unconstitutional on racial grounds.)
Restore congressional and judicial districts that reflect the Black population's actual strength. (That’s…the same thing.)
Commit to transparent and community-centered redistricting processes. (How can they be more transparent?! These maps were not redrawn in secret, as evidenced by how they have become a national outrage.)
By this metric, why do we not see a call for white student athletes to boycott those states where Democrats have redistricted heavily?! In New England, you are not going to see a single red district. Imagine white athletes choosing to boycott Ivy League schools; the rowing crew teams and lacrosse programs would wither away!
Okay, now let’s do something that this peevish outfit clearly failed to do: apply some forward thinking to their “plan.” The first issue is that they want athletes to sacrifice potential money from schools through the recent NCAA compensation effort of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). They want athletes to forgo a chance at large money deals, as the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is arguably the most powerful and most lucrative in college sports. Saying, “They can just collect money at other schools,” is a blithe explanation, since removing the SEC as a bidding entity will lower competition and lead to lower payout ceilings.
Secondly, the schools targeted in this planned boycott serve as a feeder system to the NFL. Just five schools in this targeted region — Alabama, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Clemson, and the University of Miami — saw almost 50 players selected in the recent NFL draft. But athletes are expected to impact their prospects for future play.
Understand now, this is an activist outfit that wants athletes to sacrifice their personal goals for the sake of activist desires for others, whom they are most unlikely to ever meet, let alone experience any benefit as a result. Will the NAACP compensate for the lost NIL money? Does the organization have a means to replace the exposure one will receive playing for SEC schools?
But there remains an even more ludicrous result that the NAACP activist set failed to consider, and it is one so remarkable that it is self-defeating in nature. What is the complaint? That black votes in the South have been compromised. Their solution? Drive potential black voters OUT of those southern states. Make it make sense.
Would it not be far more logical to compel arriving and current students to register to vote in the state where they will reside the bulk of the year when they enroll in schools? They are most likely to be on campus when voting takes place, so encourage them to change their residency and then become active voters while in school.
Or is that too pragmatic a concept?
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