Tuesday, February 23, 2010

My letter to the NCAA

The the letter below is one I just sent to the NCAA who, if you have not heard, recently accepted banner ads from Focus on the Family. Thanks to the amazing work of Pat Griffin and other advocates who got the word of the offense out quickly, the NCAA has pulled the ads from the website.
But there have been plans for CBS (you remember--they're the station that aired the Super Bowl with the infamous FoF Tim Tebow ad) to air more FoF ads during March Madness. There is no word, according to Griffin's blog, about the status of these ads. So I emailed the marketing and publicity department at the NCAA and told them 1) good job taking down the ads (I didn't bother to mention the mistake they made in accepting them in the first place) and 2) please don't run them during the tournament next month.
You can do the same by emailing (pmr@ncaa.org) or calling (317-917-6762 )their public relations department.

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I was quite pleased to just learn that the NCAA has decided to take down the banner ads from Focus on the Family that have been running on your web page.
I hope that you will continue to refuse ads from Focus on the Family, including during the televised coverage on CBS of the men's NCAA basketball tournament next month. Such ads are clearly in violation of the organization's own policies on advertising. Additionally ads from a well-known and unabashedly anti-gay organization harm the coaches, administrators, and student-athletes who identity as non-heterosexual. And it also harms the reputation of the NCAA. I find it hard to believe that Dr. Myles Brand would have ever let this happen under his leadership. Please honor his vision and his work and continue to uphold standards of justice and equity for all members of the NCAA.

1 comment:

Diane said...

Done, and passed on.