DOJ Says North Carolina Law Violates Civil Rights

(CN) - The U.S. Justice Department has told North Carolina lawmakers the state's new LGBT law violates civil rights protections.

The letter from Vantia Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general, was delivered to Gov. Pat McCrory on Wednesday. In it the DOJ says the state has until Monday to confirm that it will "not comply with or implement the controversial law, known as HB2.

Specifically, the department says it views the state law as violating federal Civil Rights Act protections barring workplace discrimination based on sex.

"The State is engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination against transgender state employees and both you, in your official capacity, and the state are engaging in a pattern or practice of resistance" of their rights, the letter said.

Provisions of the state law directed at transgender state employees violate their anti-discrimination protections, the letter said.

The Justice Department has also notified the 17-campus University of North Carolina system that the state law also violates Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in education based on sex, the letter said.

The Justice Department's intervention means the state is now at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal school funding.

McCrory has not commented on the letter or posted any mention of it on his Twitter account, a forum he has used to defend the law in the past.

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