DOJ tells N.C. governor anti-transgender bill could cost state billions in federal education funding

On Wednesday, DOJ sent a letter to Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) informing him that the anti-transgender law he recently signed violates the Civil Rights Act. The state must confirm by Monday that it will not comply with the law lest it face losing billions in education funding for state schools.

Known as H.B. 2, the bill pre-empted a Charlotte city anti-discrimination ordinance allowing transgender individuals to use the restrooms that conform with their gender identity. Apparently overwhelmed by hysteria and fear, North Carolinian conservatives passed H.B. 2 requiring people to use the restrooms that correspond with the sex identified on their birth certificate--signed by Gov. McCrory, of course.  

The Charlotte Observer's Jim Morrill had this extensive report, which states in part:

The letter says HB2, which pre-empted Charlotte’s anti-discrimination ordinance, violates Title IX [of the Civil Rights Act], which bars discrimination in education based on sex, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans employment discrimination.

 

If the finding is upheld, North Carolina could lose federal education funding. During the current school year, state public schools received $861 million. In 2014-2015, the University of North Carolina system got $1.4 billion...

 

The Justice Department letter came two days after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission posted a fact sheet reiterating its stance that it’s a civil rights violation to deny transgender employees access to a bathroom based on gender identity.

 

That fact sheet refers to a 2015 decision in which the EEOC ruled that a civilian transgender woman working for the Army had been discriminated against when she was banned from using the common women’s restroom and forced to use a single bathroom.

 

Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who has followed the HB2 legal issues, said the Justice Department letter was similar to one sent by the federal Education Department in the case of the Virginia transgender teen battling a bathroom ban in the Gloucester County school system.

 

“They might all be coordinating the federal response,” Tobias said...

 

In the Justice Department letter, Vanita Gupta, the Justice Department’s top civil rights lawyer, said, “HB 2 … is facially discriminatory against transgender employees on the basis of sex because it treats transgender employees, whose gender identity does not match their biological sex, as defined by HB2, differently from similarly situated non transgender employees.”

 

She went on to say the department “concluded that … the state is engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of Title VII rights by employees of public agencies…”

The bill's supporters claim that allowing transgender people to use the restrooms that correspond with their gender identity exposes children (but mostly girls, apparently) to marauding pedophiles who have just been waiting for a pretext to legally enter a restroom for illegal ends. Even though there's no record of this ever happening, H.B. 2 supporters want to make sure that children are our number one priority, which is why they would violate federal law and risk losing billions in education funding.