{"id":37682,"date":"2016-05-09T15:18:47","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T19:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=37682"},"modified":"2016-05-09T15:24:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T19:24:24","slug":"north-carolina-officials-sue-us-justice-dept-over-challenge-to-bathroom-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=37682","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina officials sue US Justice Dept over challenge to bathroom law"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bathroom bill ‘no longer just a North Carolina issue,’ Gov. McCrory says<\/h1>\n

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory filed a lawsuit Monday morning, challenging\u00a0the US Department of Justice’s demand to ‘remedy’ the state’s bathroom bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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By<\/span> Ben Rosen,
\nThe Christian Science Monitor<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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\"\"Gerry Broome\/AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory filed a lawsuit Monday morning,\u00a0asking the federal courts to clarify federal law. The filing effectively buys him more time and challenges the Justice Department’s move to rescind the so-called state “bathroom law.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Obama administration is bypassing Congress by attempting to rewrite the law and set restroom policies for public and private employers across the country, not just North Carolina. This is now a national issue that applies to every state and it needs to be resolved at the federal level,\u201d\u00a0saidGovernor McCrory in a statement<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cThey are now telling every government agency and every company that employs more than 15 people that men should be allowed to use a women\u2019s locker room, restroom or shower facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his filing, Governor McCrory cited the fact that he has directed state agencies to make a reasonable accommodation of a single occupancy restroom. The state also allows private companies to set their own policies for bathrooms, locker rooms and shower facilities.<\/p>\n

North Carolina’s governor will meet a Monday deadline to either “remedy” the state’s controversial bathroom bill or face\u00a0losing billions\u00a0in\u00a0education funding and a federal\u00a0lawsuit, he said Sunday.<\/p>\n

The US Department of Justice set the deadline for\u00a0Gov. Pat McCrory (R) in a Wednesday letter, writing that North Carolina’s H.B. 2, which was drafted to block a Charlotte ordinance to let people use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identities,\u00a0violated the US Civil Rights Act and Title IX<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McCrory said Sunday that he will make a decision within 24 hours, but he criticized\u00a0the Justice Department’s time limit, saying that any actions\u00a0he takes\u00a0will\u00a0be\u00a0consequential for too many Americans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This is no longer just a North Carolina\u00a0issue,” he said in a Fox News interview, echoing his comments to the state’s\u00a0chamber of commerce on Wednesday. “This is a basic change of norms that we’ve used for decades throughout the United States of America,\u00a0and the Obama administration is now trying to change that norm \u2014 again not just in North Carolina, but they’re ordering this to every company in the United States of America.”<\/p>\n

The bill McCrory signed into law in March requires people use the bathroom that corresponds with the sex listed on their birth certificates, not the gender with which they identify. The law, the governor said, does not apply to all bathrooms in the\u00a0Tar Heel\u00a0state. He said it only\u00a0applies\u00a0to bathrooms in government offices, universities and road-side rest stops<\/a>,\u00a0according to Fox News.<\/p>\n

But even those restrictions, the Department of Justice said, violate\u00a0the Civil Rights Act and Title IX.<\/p>\n

“The State is engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination against transgender state employees and both you, in your official capacity, and the state are engaging in a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of Title VII rights by transgender employees of public\u00a0agencies,” Vanita\u00a0Gupta, the department’s acting deputy assistant attorney general for its\u00a0civil rights division, wrote in the letter.<\/p>\n

Title VII, wrote Gupta,\u00a0prohibits an employee\u00a0from\u00a0being discriminated because of\u00a0his or her sex. According to the law,\u00a0access to sex-segregated bathrooms and other workplace facilities\u00a0is a\u00a0“term, condition or privilege of employment.”<\/p>\n

North Carolina faces\u00a0a tremendous loss of funding\u00a0if the Justice Department’s findings are upheld.\u00a0The state is poised\u00a0to\u00a0lose\u00a0billions in federal funding<\/a>\u00a0for its public schools and its 17 universities. State public schools received $861\u00a0million during\u00a0this\u00a0school year, according to The Charlotte Observer, and the\u00a0University of North Carolina system received $1.4 billion in 2014-15.<\/p>\n

These losses would be in addition to threats from\u00a0corporations, musicians, and even the\u00a0National Basketball Association to stop conducting business\u00a0in the state.<\/p>\n

Although McCrory said he disagrees\u00a0with Justice Department’s interpretation of its own laws, he declined to answer Sunday how he would respond to its letter. When pressed for an answer,\u00a0said he is exploring “all legal options.”\u00a0One option could be a court challenge<\/a>, Fox News reported.<\/p>\n

McCrory’s\u00a0concern about the ripples of his decision\u00a0is underscored by the fact that\u00a0nine states have\u00a0pending “bathroom bill” legislation<\/a>. North Carolina is the only state to have signed the bill into law. Similar legislation failed in four states \u2013\u00a0Mississippi, South Carolina,\u00a0Tennessee, and Virginia\u00a0\u2013 and was vetoed in South Dakota.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nhttp:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/USA\/Society\/2016\/0509\/Bathroom-bill-no-longer-just-a-North-Carolina-issue-Gov.-McCrory-says<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bathroom bill ‘no longer just a North Carolina issue,’ Gov. McCrory says North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory filed a lawsuit Monday morning, challenging\u00a0the US Department of Justice’s demand to ‘remedy’ the state’s bathroom bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}