The relevant precedent in the UNC case, Schroeder wrote in an 83-page opinion, is the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ April ruling that a transgender high school student in Virginia is entitled to use restrooms and other facilities corresponding to her gender identity.
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A gender neutral sign is posted outside a bathrooms at Oval Park Grill on May 11, 2016 in Durham, North Carolina. It also excludes gender identity and sexual orientation from statewide antidiscrimination protections. The North Carolina law has sparked boycotts of the state by corporations, entertainers and the National Basketball Association, which pulled its 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte.
“While the court granted a limited injunction for three individuals, we are pleased it preserved the common-sense protections to keep grown men out of bathrooms and showers with women and young girls for our public schools and for almost 10 million North Carolinians statewide”, House Speaker Tim Moore and Phil Berger, the president pro tempore of the State Senate, said in a joint statement. He also wrote that HB2’s use as a bathroom safety law is redundant with other state statues like peeping and indecent exposure laws. 2 was passed by the state legislature the next month in response and requires all government buildings, including schools, maintain separate facilities for male and females, for use according to the sex listed on the individual’s birth certificate.
“Instead of wasting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars trying to defend the indefensible, Governor McCrory and state lawmakers should be working towards fully repealing HB2”. Pat McCrory, Republican legislative leaders and a citizens group.
“We are thrilled that HB2 is starting to crumble and relieved for our clients who have had a huge burden lifted as a result of the court’s Friday ruling”, said Chris Brook, legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina, in a statement.
Several cases seeking to challenge or defend the law were assigned to Schroeder, while another case is pending in a separate federal court. In the petition it filed Monday, August 29, the Gloucester School Board said the high court should hear the case to resolve “the current nationwide controversy” over transgender access to bathrooms.
UNC law professor Maxine Eichner said she was struck by the fact that the judge – who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush – carefully weighed the plaintiffs’ hardships in the more than 80-page ruling.
“The University of North Carolina, its officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and all other persons acting in concert or participation with them are hereby ENJOINED from enforcing Part I of HB2 against the individual transgender Plaintiffs until further order of the court”.
“The judge took real care in looking at the facts”, she said.
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Sarah Warbelow of the Human Rights Campaign said: “Even though UNC had already stated its intention not to enforce HB2, Judge Schroeder’s decision to block the deeply discriminatory provision guarantees that the student plaintiffs will not face negative consequences when exercising their right to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity”.
