North Carolina transgender bathroom legislation violates Civil Rights Act, DOJ says
North Carolina’s House Bill 2, the recently passed legislation that restricts public bathroom use for transgender individuals, violates both Title VII and Title IX of the U.S. Civil Rights Act, the justice department wrote in a letter (PDF) to the state’s governor Wednesday.
Gov. Pat McCrory has until Monday to let the department know “whether you will remedy these violations of Title VII, including byconfirming the state will not comply with or implement H.B. 2,” according to the letter written by Vanita Gupta, the acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division.
“When the Attorney General of the United States has a reasonable basis to believe that a state or person has engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination in violation of Title VII, she may apply to the appropriate court for an order that will ensure compliance with Title VII,” the letter said.
Federal agencies, including the EEOC, have previously stated that discrimination against people because they are transgender amounts to sex discrimination, the Civil Rights Act prohibits.
If North Carolina implements the law, it could lose millions in federal school funding over its Title IX violations: This year, North Carolina public schools received $861 million in federal funding, the Charlotte Observer reports.
