A group of protesters are flying the confederate flag above a parking garage next to the basketball arena in Greenville, S.C., that will host this evening’s Duke-South Carolina and UNC-Arkansas games.
According to the Associated Press, the flag comes from a small group of protesters in a pick-up truck. The NCAA had a ban on hosting championship events in South Carolina from 2002 to 2015, due to the state’s public use of the flag. State lawmakers voted to remove the flag from statehouse grounds after the massacre of nine black people in a Charleston church during the summer of 2015, and the NCAA lifted its sanctions on hosting events in South Carolina shortly thereafter.
The organization released a statement decrying the flag this afternoon, but as the parking garage appears to be city property rather than a tournament venue, there will apparently not be intervention from the NCAA:
The opening two rounds of the tournament were only moved to South Carolina from North Carolina last summer, as a response to the latter state’s anti-trans bathroom bill.