The U.S. Justice Department alleged in a lawsuit Monday that the 17-campus University of North Carolina and other state agencies observing the state law are violating federal civil rights laws.
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Last week, the federal government notified McCrory that the restroom provisions in HB 2 have placed the state in violation of Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act, Title IX, and the Violence Against Women Act.
Lynch’s Department of Justice and the state of North Carolina, in an effort led by Gov. Pat McCrory, are now suing each other over the issue.
The Attorney General Loretta Lynch also threatened to withhold federal funding to the University of North Carolina system, which could be as much as $4.8 billion. But the Department of Justice plausibly construes “sex discrimination” to encompass discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
The Justice Department has compared HB2 to Jim Crow laws.
“You’ve been told that this law protects vulnerable populations from harm – but that just is not the case”, Lynch said, speaking directly to residents of her home state.
Known as HB2, the new law forbids people to use the bathrooms of their gender identity, instead of the sex on their birth certificates.
Said Phipps, “We need to limit the damage, and whatever we can do to help facilitate any movement in a productive direction, we should try to do it”.
North Carolina is a state the routinely ranks towards the bottom when it comes to education funding, per-pupil spending and teacher pay.
He said that his lawsuit asks the courts “to give clarification on what’s right and we’ll follow the law”. North Carolina continues to contend that its law does not discriminate against transgender people or treat transgender employees differently than non-transgender employees; the Justice Department disagrees.
The White House is calling a North Carolina law that limits protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people “mean-spirited” and “inconsistent with the values of fairness and equality and justice”. “We didn’t need a bathroom law”.
A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access adorns the bathroom stalls at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina May 3, 2016. “This is about the dignity and respect that we accord our fellow citizens”, she said.
“Any court that reads the federal law as written and considers the statutory interpretation by previous courts will find the administration’s claims to be unsubstantiated”, he said.
The arguments behind that law were made clear Monday: The Civil Rights Act doesn’t recognize transgender people, and our state doesn’t recognize a transgender person’s gender identity.
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Greg Phipps is a council member who voted against the original ordinance that would have allowed transgender individuals to use the bathrooms of their choice.
