UAlbany basketball team won't be playing at Duke

PHOTOGRAPHER: Tribune News Service

Duke released its nonconference basketball schedule Wednesday, but it still isn’t completely set due to North Carolina’s House Bill 2, the law that limits anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people.

Duke was originally scheduled to host UAlbany on Nov. 12 in Cameron Indoor Stadium as part of the Hall of Fame Tip-Off tournament, according to a May 4 press release. However, due to a New York state ban on nonessential publicly funded travel to North Carolina, UAlbany will not be coming. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued the ban March 29.

Holly Liapis, a spokesperson for the State University of New York (SUNY) system, to which UAlbany belongs, confirmed the school would not be traveling to Durham due to HB2.

“The State University of New York supports Governor Cuomo’s executive order banning all non-essential travel to the state of North Carolina, and we instructed our campuses to immediately review any existing travel plans by faculty and staff,” Liapis said in an emailed statement. “SUNY and its campuses continue to support the Governor on taking this stand.”

HB2 is best known for requiring transgender people in government facilities to use bathrooms matching the gender on their birth certificates, and it sets a statewide definition of protected classes of citizens from discrimination that doesn’t include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The U.S. Department of Justice is currently suing North Carolina over HB2 on the grounds that it is discriminatory and violates federal law. Gov. Pat McCrory, and state Republican House and Senate leaders have filed suits against the Department of Justice.

Wednesday morning, Duke released a nonconference schedule that featured a Nov. 12 game against Marist, a private school in New York that would not be subject to the state travel ban. But an hour later, Duke issued a corrected schedule that listed the Nov. 12 game opponent as TBA.