Roy Williams on HB2: "It's harmful to us and it's not right"

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

UNC basketball coach Roy Williams spoke out once again against North Carolina's controversial House Bill 2.

"I'm not a lawmaker, but I know the impression that that law has given other people of our state and that's the saddest thing in the world to me," Williams said at a press conference Tuesday.

HB2 requires people to use the restroom according to their biological sex listed on their birth certificate in government buildings, schools, and universities. The law also excludes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from anti-discrimination protections and blocks municipalities from adopting their own anti-discrimination and living wage rules.

"I think it's discriminatory, I don't like it, I don't think we should have it," Williams went on to say.

"I think it's harmful to us and it's not right."

Williams' comments come just days after news that the NCAA could ban championships and tournaments in North Carolina for the next 6 years because of the law.

Last year, the NCAA withdrew basketball tournament games and the Atlantic Coast Conference moved its football championship from Charlotte to Orlando because of the measure.

Governor Roy Cooper Tuesday reiterated his appeal to lawmakers to repeal HB2 saying: "I believe that if there was ever a time for bipartisanship it is now, a chance to remove the stain off of our state, a chance to remove discrimination, and a chance to bring these hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs back to our state."