Legal Groups Urge Feds To Threaten North Carolina’s School Funding

buzzfeed.com

The country’s top LGBT legal organizations urged federal officials on Thursday to make it clear that passing anti-LGBT laws like one in North Carolina will jeopardize their federal education funding.

In their letter to White House counsel Neil Eggleston and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the five groups write, “This administration must make definitively clear that wholesale requirements of sex discrimination like [North Carolina’s] HB 2 will put federal funding at risk.”

North Carolina — which is slated to receive $4.5 billion in federal education funds next year...

under the Obama administration, federal agencies have asserted that prohibiting a transgender student from restrooms that match their gender violates Title IX of the Education Act of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

“In the face of such a categorical violation of federal sex discrimination laws, the normal remedial process of filing complaints with federal civil rights agencies … is wholly insufficient,” said the letter.

It was sent by the American Civil Liberties Union, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, Lambda Legal, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Transgender Law Center. A Justice Department spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, “The department has received and is reviewing the letter.”

The Department of Education said in an early April statement to BuzzFeed News that it is “reviewing North Carolina’s new law to determine any potential impact on the state’s federal education funding.”