After the Justice Department notified North Carolina last week that its new state statute could violate the federal Civil Rights Act, McCrory filed a lawsuit Monday, asking the federal courts to intervene.
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North Carolina Representative Robert Pittenger (R-09) said the legal action taken by the Department of Justice this week against North Carolina, Governor Pat McCrory and several of his cabinet agencies raises bigger constitutional questions that may be addressed by Congress in the months to come.
The leaders of the 17-campus University of North Carolina system say they are not violating federal anti-discrimination protections by following the state’s new bathroom access law, and are seeking legal representation in a lawsuit against federal authorities.
It also block any other local ordinances protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
“We can’t operate this place without federal funding”, Spellings said before defending her university’s action amid the controversial bill accused of targeting transgender people. “2, and its threat to economically harm the state by withholding millions of federal dollars, is the latest attempt to coerce conformity with the administration’s political agenda”, she said.
The issue of whether transgender people deserve the same federal protections extended to blacks and religious minorities is already before courts in North Carolina.
McCrory has joined an amicus brief with the 4 U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving a transgender Virginia student who sued to use school bathrooms based on his gender identity.
The dueling lawsuits were filed in different federal districts, but may end up being consolidated.
The university was named as a defendant in the Justice Department lawsuit, along with the state and the governor. “That being said, we don’t condone or agree with any type of bigotry or discrimination”.
While perceived as more moderate than some of his colleagues, “he is certainly not known for being liberal”, said Maxine Eichner, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.
The basic details of the North Carolina Bathroom Bill have been lost in the drama surrounding the bill, but Amber reminded us that the states pass bills all the time in order to counter municipalities that may be more or less liberal than the rest of the state as a whole.
Hours earlier, McCrory and Public Safety Secretary Frank Perry filed a separate federal suit accusing the Department of Justice and Attorney General Loretta Lynch of “a baseless and blatant overreach”.
He also defended the public rationale for the law and argued that the presence of transgender children in the facilities they prefer could infringe on their peers’ privacy rights.
The bill says it’s created to “protect all North Carolinians against discrimination in all walks of life”.
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“She is saying that these are Americans who are facing the very same struggles that other Americans have faced”, said Bob Witeck, a Washington-based LGBT advocate and a consultant to businesses and nonprofit organizations on LGBT issues.
