Leaders of North Carolina's public universities are grappling with a threat that the federal government could withold billions of dollars if the state loses a legal battle over transgender students and bathrooms.
To put it simply, the UNC system is stuck between two government orders: federal and state.
On the state side, public universities have to comply with House Bill 2, including the controversial bathroom provision which states that transgender individuals must use the bathroom that corresponds with their sex at birth.
The federal government says HB2 is discriminatory, and violates the Civil Rights Act.
But UNC doesn't want the battle fought on its campuses. The governing board spent hours Tuesday discussing a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department accusing the 17-campus system of violating federal civil rights laws.
In a letter sent to the Department of Justice Monday, system president Margaret Spellings stressed that UNC has not enforced HB2 on campuses (the law does not address enforcement). And she wants to keep schools welcoming to all students and faculty. But state law still looms large. Spellings writes, “We hope that the Department of Justice appreciates that the University is in a difficult position.”
And the stakes are high. If North Carolina continues to back HB2's bathroom provision, it could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.