WASHINGTON (TNND) — Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for continued support of the NAACP and urged athletes to “look elsewhere” until “these racially gerrymandered maps in the South are reversed,” adding that the maps should be “buried in the ground, never to rise again”
Dr. Carol Swain, a former law professor at Princeton and Vanderbilt, criticized the NAACP’s approach and said student-athletes are being pressured in ways that could harm them. (TNND)
The comments came amid a broader debate over the NAACP’s push for athletes to avoid certain schools in states at the center of redistricting fights, including Louisiana, which was described as a flashpoint in the voter representation debate in elections. The NAACP’s athlete boycott also centers around the SCORE Act, which Jeffries likens to “Jim Crow”- like oppression. The SCORE Act is a bill that would establish national standards for college athletes for NIL deals & transfers.
Dr. Carol Swain, a former law professor at Princeton and Vanderbilt, criticized the NAACP’s approach and said student-athletes are being pressured in ways that could harm them.
“If they [the NAACP] wanted to do something for the Black community, then they should focus on the problems that are really disrupting the nation because the problems don’t stay at home,” Swain told The National New Desk.
Swain also criticized the NAACP’s legal and political efforts tied to voting and redistricting, calling its fight “with the Voting Rights Act and with the administration” “just meaningless.”
She said “the Supreme Court decision was based on the Constitution,” and added that “the Supreme Court has never supported race-based redistricting.”
Separately, Swain pointed to what was described as a bipartisan issue involving allegations of financial fraud against the Southern Poverty Law Center. Swain said she testified on Wednesday at a hearing on allegations that the SPLC used donor funds “to pay informants, to monitor extremist groups and essentially justify their existence.”
Swain argued the organization had drifted from its original purpose, saying, “There were not enough real hate groups for them to raise money around.” She said the SPLC “started targeting conservatives like Lou Dobbs and organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, the Center for Immigration Studies and the Federation of Immigration Reform.”
“They retaliated against me after I published my article, and I found my, face on the front page of The Tennessean with a label that I was an apologist for white supremacy,” Swain said.
Swain said the SPLC is “very partisan,” and argued, “They should not have a 501(c)(3) designation. They should become a (c)(4) because they are an arm of the Democratic Party,” Swain said.
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