The lawsuit that North Carolina filed in May requesting federal court protection of the state’s HB 2 law came to an end this past Friday when Governor Pat McCrory withdrew the state’s lawsuit.
The suit was filed after U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch claimed that the so called “bathroom bill” was in direct violation of Title IX and the Civil Rights Act and threatened to pull federal funding to the state as a response, though the decision was later rescinded.
The “Substantial costs” of money and time impacting the state were given as the reasoning behind McCrory’s dismissal of the case.
However, this decision is not the end of the ongoing battle over North Carolina’s discriminatory HB2 bathroom bill. The Department of Justice counter-sued the state of North Carolina. This lawsuit remains active and faces a potential U.S. Supreme Court hearing.
The highly controversial legislation aims to prevent transgender people from using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity, and makes discrimination against LGBTQ people in the public domain fully legal.
The withdrawal from McCrory’s administration comes shortly after the NCAA revoked North Carolina as the host for a number of championship college tournaments, including the first and second rounds of the lucrative Division I men’s basketball tournament. Last month federal Judge Thomas Schroeder blocked the University of North Carolina from enforcing the HB 2 restrictions on two transgender students and one employee who had filed suit.
