The federal government took on North Carolina’s controversial “bathroom bill” Wednesday, giving the governor until Monday to pledge that he will walk away from the law, which Justice Department officials said violates civil rights.
The state risks losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding if Republican Gov. Pat McCrory defies the warning and maintains his support for the measure, which requires transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender at birth.
The move sets up a confrontation between the Republican state leadership, already facing widespread public outcry and boycotts, and the Democratic administration in Washington. At least five federal agencies are weighing whether to withhold funds from the state. Among them is the Education Department, which, according to budget documents, provides more than $4 billion in assistance to North Carolina, much of it in the form of student loans.
A spokeswoman at the Education Department said its review was ongoing. The Justice Department also sends some federal grants to the state, and department officials say they could withhold those or file a lawsuit to bring North Carolina into compliance. In a letter from Vanita Gupta, its head of civil rights, the department notified North Carolina in a letter that the law is a violation of the federal Civil Rights Act. The letter previously was reported by the Charlotte Observer but confirmed to The Washington Post.
McCrory said in an appearance on local TV on Wednesday that he thought the Justice Department letter was a “pretty sweeping conclusion” from one federal agency about a law he described as a “very common-sense rule.”
“This is no longer just a North Carolina issue, because this conclusion by the Department of Justice impacts every state, every university and almost every employer in the United States of America,” he said.
North Carolina’s law has sparked controversy across the country, including heated opposition from business groups and a host of major companies. At least two companies — PayPal and Deutsche Bank — said they were scrapping planned expansions in North Carolina because of the law, moves that would cost the state hundreds of jobs as well as millions of dollars that state officials had said they would bring to the local economies.
Several states have introduced “religious freedom” bills in the aftermath of last year’s Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage across the country. Also on Wednesday, a group of Illinois students and parents sued the Obama administration, arguing that the Education Department is illegally forcing local authorities to let children use facilities that correspond to their gender identity. The same day, a small city in Alabama recalled its own bathroom ordinance, one that punished violators with up to six months in jail and had been passed a week earlier.
A Justice Department official said the decision to send the letter was not especially controversial, although it was reviewed by high-level officials. Then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a memo in 2014 that workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity is prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Justice Department has not been shy about staking out its position on the issue.
A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., recently ruled that a transgender high school student who was born female could sue his school board on discrimination grounds because it banned him from the boys’ bathroom. The Obama administration filed a statement of interest backing the student in that case and another statement of interest supporting a transgender teen in Michigan who sued school officials for failing to accommodate him and for failing to address bullying.
The U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights previously found that an Illinois school district violated the law when it banned a transgender girl from the girls’ locker room. Department officials told the district that it risked losing federal funding if it did not accommodate the student.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has said he would not defend the law, and in a statement Wednesday, he urged the governor to advocate for its repeal.
“Enough is enough,” said Cooper, who will face McCrory in a gubernatorial election in November. “It’s time for the governor to put our schools and economy first and work to repeal this devastating law.”
McCrory, who signed the law in March, has repeatedly defended the measure since then, arguing that it is needed to protect people’s privacy. He has criticized what he described as “a vicious nationwide smear campaign” against the measure and claimed that President Barack Obama’s goal is “to force our high schools to allow boys in girls’ restrooms.”
Obama has said that the North Carolina law, as well as a measure in Mississippi that would let certain businesses refuse service to gay people, “are wrong and should be overturned.”
“I think it’s very important for us not to send signals that anybody is treated differently,” he has said.
Phil Berger, president pro tempore of the North Carolina state Senate, responded harshly to the letter. “This is a gross overreach by the Obama Justice Department that deserves to be struck down in federal court,” the Republican said in a statement.
Rights groups that are challenging the North Carolina law in federal court said the Justice Department’s letter proves that the lawmakers who backed the law ignored the possible repercussions.
“It is now clearer than ever that this discriminatory law violates civil rights protections and jeopardizes billions of dollars in federal funds for North Carolina,” the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina and Lambda Legal said in a statement.
The Justice Department has previously sued over state laws it deems unconstitutional
