If the state does not comply with federal civil rights law, it could lose $4.5 billion in federal education funding alone, which works out to almost $500 per North Carolina taxpayer or a decrease of $2,500 in education funding per public school student, including those attending North Carolina’s public universities.
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North Carolina is the first USA state to pass a law requiring transgender people to use public bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificate instead of the gender with which they identify.
“It is nearly impossible for us to act within the deadline that DOJ has set”, the spokesperson said, adding “The House will not take any action based on the DOJ letter and deadline in it”.
Washington, D.C. -(ENEWSPF)- The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Equality NC have sent letters to chancellors and presidents of the University of North Carolina and North Carolina Community College systems urging them to reverse implementation of the deeply discriminatory HB2. “That’s not how this works”, he said.
“We’ve never before seen a state do something as aggressive as require mandatory discrimination against its own transgender employees”, said Peter Renn, an attorney with Lambda Legal, in a phone interview with Reuters.
The law also was found to violate Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in education based on sex.
Justice gave the state until Monday to remedy the violations or risk losing billions of dollars in federal education funding.
She also said she hoped legislators would change the law, and in yet another statement, she acknowledged that UNC students, faculty and staff are “hurt, angry and even afraid” as a result of the law.
The Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act has been passed in North Carolina as House Bill 2 (NCHB2 or HB2) that prohibits individuals using public bathrooms beyond their biological sex.
Similar demands were required of the state Department of Public Safety because it receives federal domestic violence prevention funds. That power is reserved for the state, under the new law. “This is not only the right thing to do, it is the law”. “I think we’ve come to a place in America today where it’s just not okay to pass laws that judge other people for who they are”.
McCrory and fellow Republicans say President Barack Obama’s administration has gone too far by stepping in.
Under HB2, transgender state employees can not use bathrooms and changing facilities in public buildings that match their gender identity.
“It’s absurd to assert, as the Department of Justice does, that by placing the word “sex” in federal nondiscrimination laws, Congress meant to force states to open their restrooms to people of the opposite biological sex”, Fiedorek said.
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The letter focused on government employees who identify as the opposite gender.
