The ACC and NCAA's decision to pull championship events from the state of North Carolina as a response to House Bill 2, the "bathroom bill," sparked outrage among the bill's supporters and much of the Republican majority in the legislature. 

Faced with the economic impact of losing NCAA Tournament games, the ACC football championship and the NBA All-Star Game, North Carolina lawmakers supporting HB2 pointed the blame at the leagues for political grandstanding. Now they've gone a step further, proposing legislation that would remove the North Carolina public schools from the ACC (North Carolina and North Carolina State) should the league decide to boycott the state again. 

House Bill 278 states that if "a constituent institution of The University of North Carolina" -- UNC, NC State, Appalachian State, Charlotte and 14 others -- participates in a league that enacts a boycott of the state, then that school is "prohibited from extending any grant of media rights to the conference" and will inform that league of the intention to withdraw from the conference. 

HB2 was recently rolled back at the 11th hour with new legislation that prompted the ACC and NCAA to reverse their decision to boycott the state.   

Picking fights with the ACC and other conferences is not in the best interest of North Carolinians, but the legalities of trying to navigate a media rights deal that currently runs through 2035-36 is what makes this bill unlikely to pass as law. The ultimate impact of the bill will be a small chapter in the ongoing culture war in the state, a response to the ACC and NCAA's impact in one of the state's most divisive political issues in decades.