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 The state’s leading Republican lawmaker, House Speaker Tim Moore,
told reporters in Raleigh that North Carolina would not be “bullied”
into meeting the U.S. Justice Department’s Monday deadline to change
the law.
North Carolina is the first U.S. state to pass a law requiring
transgender people to use public bathrooms that correspond with the
sex on their birth certificate instead of the gender with which they
identify.
Republican legislators in several other states have proposed similar
laws, making transgender rights a hot-button social issue in an
election year.
The Justice Department's challenge is similarly unprecedented,
though the agency has in the past intervened on behalf of
transgender individuals who have alleged discrimination.
The Republican National Committee urged state legislators in January
to resist federal policies that allow transgender people to use
restrooms of their choice at public schools.
 The Justice Department said in letters to North Carolina Governor
Pat McCrory and other state officials on Wednesday that the state
had until Monday to decided if it would stop discriminating against
transgender state employees.
McCrory affirmed his support for the “very common-sense rule” before
a group of business leaders on Wednesday night but said he did not
know if the state would fight the Justice Department. His office did
not respond to questions on Thursday.
If McCrory does not stand down from enforcing the law, the Justice
Department's civil rights division could push for a court order. If
a federal judge sides with the agency, North Carolina would have to
comply or face a reduction in federal funding.
On Thursday, Republican Senate leader Phil Berger's spokeswoman, Amy
Auth, said state lawyers were reviewing the letter. Berger on
Wednesday said the department’s position represented “a gross
overreach." North Carolina's Secretary of Public Safety and
officials at the University of North Carolina also received similar
letters on Wednesday.
Margaret Spellings, president of the University of North Carolina
system, said her office would respond to the department’s letter by
the deadline.
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“We take this determination seriously and will be conferring with
the Governor’s Office, legislative leaders, and counsel about next
steps,” she said.
Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson would not say whether
the department would take legal action against the state.
The state law is being challenged in federal court by critics
including the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal, which
advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.
"We've never before seen a state do something as aggressive as
require mandatory discrimination against its own transgender
employees," said Peter Renn, an attorney with Lambda Legal, in a
phone interview with Reuters.
Jillian Weiss, an attorney who has argued in federal court for
transgender rights, said the Justice Department’s action against
North Carolina showed the federal government was willing to
intervene when states passed laws reducing rights based on gender
identity and sexual orientation.
Weiss predicts Mississippi, where a law allowing businesses to
refuse service to gay people takes effect in July, will be the
department’s next target.
(Additional reporting by Julia Edwards and Julia Harte in
Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell and Alan Crosby)
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