North Carolina students sue US Government over threat of loss of federal education funding
North Carolina students and parents are suing America over the threat that the state may lose federal education dollars over its anti-LGBT bill.
The US Department of Justice and US Department of Education recently gave the Governor of North Carolina a deadline to reply about the state’s recently introduced HB2 bill.
HB2 bans transgender students from using a gender-appropriate bathroom and rolls back local laws protecting LGBT people.
But the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom filed a complaint on Tuesday on behalf of a group of public school students and their parents, named ‘North Carolinians for Privacy’.
The lawsuit is the fifth to be filed in order to push courts to rule on the law.
“The agencies must stop using falsehoods about what federal law requires to threaten student access to educational opportunities and financial assistance,” Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for the alliance, said in a statement on Wednesday.
The US Justice Department sued the state of North Carolina on Monday, asking a federal court to rule that the law violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Department said the state should stop enforcing HB2.
The Attorney General Loretta Lynch also threatened to withhold federal funding to the University of North Carolina system, which could be as much as $4.8 billion.
In response, Governor McCrory filed his own desperate lawsuit against the federal government yesterday.
In it, he named Ms Lynch, the head of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Vanita Gupta and the Justice Department.
“We’re taking the Obama admin to court,” he wrote.
“They’re bypassing Congress, attempting to rewrite law & policies for the whole country, not just NC.
“Our lawsuit seeks to ensure that NC continues to receive federal funding until the courts clarify federal law & resolve this national issue.”
