COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - An NCAA committee decided Tuesday it will not expand its ban on postseason championships in South Carolina and Mississippi, where the Confederate flag is displayed on Statehouse grounds. The Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee said the NCAA should continue its moratorium on bringing predetermined events, such as NCAA basketball regionals, to the two states. The ban will not be expanded, however, to sites awarded on merit, such as baseball tournament regionals or football playoff games.
The committee was acting on a request from the Black Coaches Association to stiffen sanctions in South Carolina and Mississippi, whose state flags contain the Confederate emblem. The flag is not displayed on any NCAA campus in either state.
Committee chairman Robert Vowels Jr. said in a statement expanding the ban would not be fair "since institutions do not have control over the placement of the Confederate flag."
Clemson's athletic director, Terry Don Phillips, said the school was pleased with the decision.
"It will impact a lot of universities and a lot of student athletes in our state. And certainly we feel it is a correct decision," Phillips said. "It's obviously a very sensitive political issue, and we don't have any control over it."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began an economic boycott of South Carolina in 2000, urging tourists, industry and sporting events to stay away because the flag flew on the Statehouse dome. A legislative compromise later that year took the flag from the top of the Capitol to a Confederate monument in front of the Statehouse.
The NAACP said that wasn't enough, calling the flag's current location even more prominent, and vowed to continue the boycott.
Flag supporters say it honors the state's Confederate heritage and those who died in the Civil War while opponents say it is a symbol of racism and hatred.
The NCAA put its ban in place in 2001.
