WWU Team Drops School Affiliation For Nationals Due To HB2 Travel Ban

HB2 law forces name change.

The Western Washington women’s team, which qualified for Nationals by finishing fifth at Northwest Regionals, won’t be competing at the College Championships. Well, at least not as you know them.

The team has dropped its school affiliation and will head to Raleigh as an independent team simply called ‘Chaos’ after WWU banned non-essential travel to North Carolina in the footsteps of Washington governor Jay Inslee’s ban on travel for certain public agencies. The travel bans were part of a wave of similar policies passed around the United States in opposition to North Carolina’s controversial HB-2 bill, signed into law on March 23, 2016.

RELATED: HB-2: From Talk To Action

“Chaos has confirmed to us that they are not permitted to represent Western Washington University in North Carolina, per school policy,” said USA Ultimate Communications Director Andy Lee. “As a result, and to be respectful of the team’s situation, we will not use the university name in any capacity at the event.”

Western Washington normally gets some financial support to travel to Nationals and the ability to leverage the university’s preferred pricing on airline and hotel bookings. But this year, that won’t happen.

“Our university has chosen not to fund any travel to North Carolina because of HB2 and is thus unable to support us financially,” said the WWU captains in a collective statement by email. “Therefore, we have chosen to participate in college nationals as an independent Bellingham team raising funds through other means in the ultimate community.

“We wish to respect the University’s position on the issue and since the university does not want to support any travel to North Carolina at this time, we have chosen not to travel under their name.”