Governor Pattrick McCrory sued the federal government on Monday after it challenged a “bathroom law” in his state. Hours later, the DOJ shot back with its own suit.
Gerry Broome / AP
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, facing a Department of Justice deadline to decide if his state would not comply with an anti-LGBT "bathroom law," defiantly sued the federal agency on Monday — and hours later the DOJ responded with its own suit against the state.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the law — which was passed in March and bans transgender people access to restrooms that match their gender identity in government buildings and schools — violates federal civil rights laws which prohibit discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sex.
The law — known as HB2 — "created state-sponsored discrimination against transgender individuals, who simply seek to engage in the most private of functions in a place of safety and security – a right taken for granted by most of us," Lynch said at a news conference Monday afternoon.
McCrory, in his lawsuit, called the Justice Department's stance "a baseless and blatant overreach," and sued Lynch and U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta for "their radical interpretation of Title VII … which would prevent plaintiffs from protecting the bodily privacy rights of state employees while accommodating the needs of transgendered state employees."
The Department of Justice lawsuit says HB2 "stigmatizes and singles out transgender employees, results in their isolation and exclusion, and perpetuates a sense that they are not worthy of equal treatment and respect."
The Justice Department is seeking a statewide ban on the law and has retained options of curtailing federal funding to the state's Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina.
"This action is about a great deal more than just bathrooms," Lynch said. "This is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we, as a people and as a country, have enacted to protect them – indeed, to protect all of us."