Bathroom Bill Is Setting Us Back

House Bill 2, the so called Bathroom Bill, is sending North Carolina in the wrong direction.

The bill was designed to ensure that people use bathroom facilities assigned as their biological gender dictates. However, what was embedded in the bill, and went practically unnoticed and unopposed, was a sneaky little provision that eliminated protection from discrimination for North Carolina workers.

Within HB 2 is wording that takes away the right to sue employers in the North Carolina State courts if an employee feels he or she has been discriminated against.

Many protected groups, including the handicapped, senior citizens, veterans, women, African Americans, Latino’s, Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders (I could go on and on), have fought hard for decades to end discrimination in the workplace. This includes discrimination in hiring, promotions, and terminations. This bill sends North Carolina back into the past as if these battles had not been fought and won.

To make matters worse, there is wording that allows the granting of state and local government contracts to businesses that discriminate against their employees. Not only that: if local governments such as townships, cities, and counties pass their own anti-discrimination laws, or have already enacted it, the new state law makes them null and void.

What will this mean for institutions that have in place diversity measures to see that these minority groups are treated fairly in the workplace? Will progressive, fair-minded businesses that pay a living wage prefer to relocate to a state that is moving forward instead of backward?

I don’t know what the future will hold for people locally and across the State of North Carolina now that this bill has been passed, but I know it can’t be good.