title:  DOJ Tells North Carolina Republicans That Anti-LGBT Law Violates Civil Rights Act
text: There has been a national uproar over HB2 ever since North Carolina Republicans passed it into law last month. The law allows business owners to discriminate against LGBT customers and employees under the guise of religious freedom, including transgender people, whom Republicans claim are a threat to women and children in bathrooms despite the fact that there have been no instances of a transgender person using protections to defend sexually assaulting a woman or child in a bathroom.What HB2 has done is cause an all-out revolt against the state by lawmakers, corporations, small businesses, activists, and entertainers. Business projects are being halted and concerts are being cancelled, causing a loss of potential jobs and needed boosts to local economies.And it is about to get even worse as North Carolina now faces the loss of millions of federal dollars because the Department of Justice has sent a letter to Governor Pat McCrory informing him that HB2 violates the Civil Rights Act.According to the Charlotte Observer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta found that the bigoted law violated Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII says employers may not discriminate against people. And Title IX says schools cannot discriminate against people based on sex.Gupta and the DOJ then gave Governor McCrory until May 9th to respond to the letter by confriming that the state will comply with federal law and dump HB2.Here s the letter via the Charlotte Observer: The Department of Justice has determined that, as a result of compliance with and implementation of NC House Bill2, both you and the state of NC are in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act 0f 1964 Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminating against an individual on the basis of sex and from otherwise resisting the full enjoyment of Title VII rights .Federal courts and administrative agencies have applied Title VII to discrimination against transgender individuals based on sex, including gender identity .Access to sex-segregated restrooms and other workplace facilities consistent with gender identity is a term, condition or privilege of employment. Denying such access to transgender individuals, whose gender identity is different from the gender assigned at birth, while affording it to similarly situated non-transgender employees, violates Title VII  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 Based upon the above, we have concluded that in violation of Title VII, the state is engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of Title VII rights by employees of public agencies Please advise the department, therefore, no later than the close of business on May 9, 2016, whether you will remedy these violations of Title VII including by confirming that the state will not comply with or implement HB2 .We further inform you that that today the department sent letters addressed to the NC Department of Public Safety and the University of NC similarly notifying them of our conclusion that they have engaged in violations of Title VII as well as violations of Title IX. If Republicans refuse to back down, they risk costing their state nearly $1 billion in federal education funding alone, which would be a devastating blow to North Carolina.Here s a helpful video about HB2 via the Charlotte Observer as well:Clearly, Governor McCrory and his Republican colleagues seriously need to repeal this discriminatory law or facs serious backlash on a level that will likely spur voters to throw them out of office during the next statewide election, and that s assuming voters haven t already decided to do so.Featured image via Wikimedia