To the editor:

When the North Carolina legislature rushed in a one-day special session last month to pass HB2, the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, which requires people to use public restrooms according to the biological sex on their birth certificate, they and Republican Governor Pat McCrory set taxpayers up to pay for the numerous suits that have been and will be filed against this law.

I am angry that I must now pay taxes to support the Republican lawmakers’ folly in dreaming up a sensational non-issue to camouflage the shameful civil rights annulments hidden inside the bill.

Tucked inside is language that strips North Carolina workers of the ability to sue under a state anti-discrimination law, a right that has been upheld in court since 1985. “If you were fired because of your race, fired because of your gender, fired because of your religion,” said Allan Freyer, head of the Workers’ Rights Project at the N.C. Justice Center in Raleigh, “… you no longer have a basic remedy.”

“The LGBT issues were a Trojan horse,” added Erika Wilson, a law professor at the University of North Carolina who co-directs a legal clinic for low-income plaintiffs with job and housing discrimination claims.“People were so caught up in [the LGBT] part of the law that this snuck under the radar.”

Winston-Salem attorney Robin Shea, had a different take: “We expect to see a flurry of summary judgment motions and motions to dismiss wrongful discharge claims based on this amendment.” Shea, partner in a firm that represents employers, called the change a “bomb.”

In HB2, lawmakers accomplished this by adding a single sentence to the state’s employment discrimination law that says: “[No] person may bring any civil action based upon the public policy expressed herein.”

The passage affecting discrimination lawsuits amends the North Carolina Equal Employment Practices Act (1977), which declares that it is against the state’s “public policy” to discriminate in employment “on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex or handicap.” The act — which applied to businesses with 15 or more employees — did not contain explicit language allowing alleged victims of job bias to sue. But since the mid–1980s, North Carolina courts have held that the “public policy” doctrine does give people who are wrongfully fired because of discrimination the right to recover damages under common (non-statutory) law. In the space of the 12-hour special session, HB2 “wiped out this entire body of law that’s been in place for the last 30 years,” said Chapel Hill lawyer Laura Noble.

The measure preempted local governments from passing any laws aimed at protecting gay and transgender people, a provision that immediately nullified more than 20 existing local ordinances. Another provision banned local minimum wage laws like the $15-an-hour “living wage” ordinances gaining traction around the country. The state minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour.

This bill is an offense to all of our citizens.

~ Janet Gray, Tryon, N.C.