The White House said Monday that the federal review of North Carolina’s “bathroom” law will not be halted or otherwise affected by the state’s decision to file suit against the Justice Department.
“I’m not aware of any change in the posture of that review,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday when asked if the review might be halted. “The position of the North Carolina government has not changed. They are asserting that this mean-spirited law is somehow consistent with the Civil Rights Act and [the nation’s] values.”
Federal agencies are in the process of reviewing whether any funding they give to North Carolina might be cut off because of the bathroom law, which prohibits transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice. Earnest’s response indicates that process will continue, but he referred specific questions about the lawsuit to the Justice Department and went on to underscore the Obama administration’s sharp disagreement with it.
Earnest also argued that the law is not “in the best interests of the people of North Carolina” or the state’s economy because businesses have started to boycott the state because the legislature there “made it easier to discriminate against their employees and potential customers.”
“Something that the president has spoken to very powerfully [is that] what the North Carolina legislature has passed in a one-day session is inconsistent with the values of equality we hold dear as a nation,” he said.
North Carolina officials sued the Justice Department Monday for challenging the state law on bathroom access for transgender people.
Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, accused the Justice Department of “baseless and blatant overreach” after Justice’s top civil rights lawyer, Vanita Gupta, sent letters to North Carolina officials last week that argued that the state law is a civil rights violation and the state could face a federal lawsuit if it continued to enforce it.
In March, North Carolina passed a law requiring transgender people to use restrooms in public buildings and school that match the sex on their birth certificates instead of their gender identity.
