By A.P. Dillon
On November 21st, Governor Pat McCrory sent a letter to Attorney General Roy Cooper, asking him to have the state of North Carolina join South Carolina in an amicus brief regarding the case involving G. G. v. Gloucester County School Board.
The letter to Cooper notes the thrust of the case being the incredible overreach by the Obama administration’s Department of Education of which I had written about earlier in November:
“In this case, the Obama Administration has joined with the A.C.L.U. in an attempt to force local school districts to open sex-specific student locker rooms and bathrooms to individuals that are not of that biological sex. This extreme position directly contradicts the express language of federal law and threatens local control of our schools. It also disregards the safety and privacy concerns of parents and students. The Obama Administration has already informed school authorities in North Carolina and around the country of this directive, and is threatening resistant schools with legal action and loss of federal funding.”
The Attorney General nor his office responded, but instead had Jamal Little, the campaign manager for Attorney General Cooper’s gubernatorial bid, issue a statement:
“This week, [McCrory has] found another group to politicize. Adolescence is hard enough without being bullied by an elected official. Next week, who knows who’ll be the target of a governor whose only path to re-election is dividing North Carolina.” (Source: Carolina Journal)
Ironic for a campaign manager to describe Governor McCrory’s request for the Attorney General to do his job, ‘politicizing’.
With the November 25th deadline looming to join the amicus brief, Governor McCrory’s office issued a press release on the 24th. In the press release, the Governor announces that North Carolina will be signing on to the brief without Attorney General Cooper, noting that the Attorney General was asked to do so and refused:
“North Carolina parents deserve certainty about who is entering their children’s bathrooms and locker rooms at our public schools and students must be confident that their privacy and well-being will be respected,” Governor McCrory said. “Transgender identity is a complex issue and is best handled with reason and compassion at the local level, instead of mandates being forced on the people by Washington and the Obama Administration.”
Governor McCrory asked the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office to join the South Carolina amicus brief on behalf of the people of North Carolina, but the Attorney General has refused.
A decision favoring the Obama Administration in the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals would be binding on all North Carolina school districts, thus removing any local flexibility in dealing with transgender issues.
“The Obama administration is threatening schools that resist with legal action and the loss of federal funding,” Governor McCrory said. “As governor, I will protect North Carolina values from the imposition of extreme views from Washington.”
McCrory rightly notes that this case before the Fourth Circuit would be binding on all North Carolina Schools. He’s right to take a stand here – this suit is akin to the federal government saying, ‘nice Title IX funds you have there, it would be a shame if anything happened to them’.
Let’s remember what Vanessa Jeter of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has said about this case, “On the legal and facility side, legal advised me that the Federal Office of Civil Rights has advised that districts should provide access to restrooms and so forth as requested by transgender students. The facilities question is really a local school board question since facilities are handled locally.”
Now keep in mind, when I inquired to the school board local to me (Wake county), that they were more interested in who I was writing for than answering the question. In fact, they never did answer the question.
It is painfully clear that parents are going to have to keep tabs on this suit and amicus brief as they run their course. Some background on the case including all the relevant documents are handily located at the ClearingHouse, housed by the University of Michigan. The South Carolina amicus brief is located here.
When you boil it down, the federal government is using a monetary threat to strong-arm states into complying with their desire to dictate who can change in what room or who can pee in what bathroom simply based on what any given student ‘identifies’ their gender as.
If there was ever a neon sign flashing ‘your government is out of control’, this would be a good candidate.
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