DOJ files complaint challenging North Carolina HB2 News
DOJ files complaint challenging North Carolina HB2

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] Monday challenging North Carolina’s controversial House Bill 2 [text, PDF]. The DOJ alleges that North Carolina is discriminating against transgender individuals in violation of federal law. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina [official website], comes after the DOJ advised Governor Pat McCrory [JURIST report] last week that the law violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, giving him until Monday to remedy the violations. According to the complaint:

Defendants State of North Carolina and Governor McCrory have engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of employment rights under Title VII by implementing and requiring compliance with policies and practices that require public agencies to discriminate against their transgender employees based on sex in the terms, conditions, and privileges of employment in violation of Title VII.

The lawsuit came just hours after McCrory filed a complaint for declaratory judgment [JURIST report] asking the federal court to weigh in on the legality of HB2, calling it a “national issue.”

North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” has generated significant controversy. In March North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper stated during a press conference that he would not defend [JURIST report] HB2, which he considers to be discriminatory. Earlier that week North Carolina individuals and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] against McCrory, claiming that the bill he signed one week prior was unconstitutional and discriminatory. Earlier that month the North Carolina governor signed the bill into law [JURIST report], preventing local governments from enacting their own nondiscrimination ordinances and making them unable to pass laws allowing transgender people to use the public restroom or locker room that corresponds with their gender identity. Last month McCrory issued an executive order [JURIST report] that he said was meant to clarify the controversial bill.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.