Kai F. McNeil
Margaret Spellings, former secretary of education and current president of the UNC System, speaks with Hannah Fennell, a junior studying applied mathematics, during her visit to North Carolina State University on April 20, 2016. Fennell was one of the students protesting Spellings appointment as president.
The UNC System told a federal court Friday that it will not enforce a component of the law commonly referred to as House Bill 2, which requires transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding with the gender on their birth certificates.
UNC System President Margaret Spellings has been under fire since the bill was announced, with many asking her and the UNC System whether they would enforce the state law.
Spellings and the Board of Governors have previously come out saying that the law isn’t enforceable. Spellings says HB2 does not include a method to actually go about enforcing the law.
“I have no intent to exercise my authority to promulgate any guidelines or regulations that require transgender students to use the restrooms consistent with their biological sex,” Spellings wrote to The Associated Press.
Since the law has been passed, several lawsuits have been filed against the UNC System and the North Carolina state government.
Spellings and the UNC System have asked a federal judge to halt these legal proceedings until after a ruling is made in a lawsuit being heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, involving a transgender student and what bathroom they should be allowed to use, according to The News and Observer.
That appeals court decided not to hear the case on Tuesday and is sending it back to a federal court in Virginia, according to The Washington Post.
Spellings formerly served as the secretary of education under the George W. Bush administration, and is known for having conflictive thoughts on the LGBT community. Spellings has not released her personal opinion regarding the matter.
The lawyers for the UNC System have also said that there has been no change in their decision since the law was passed because the law still doesn’t contain an enforcement mechanism.
“There is nothing in the act that prevents any transgender person from using the restroom consistent with his or her gender identity,” the lawyers wrote.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has said he believes that the law protects the privacy of people, and has attacked President Barack Obama concerning a directive that the federal government has passed to defund schools that don’t allow transgendered students to use the bathroom they prefer.
“School systems throughout our nation should be allowed to make sensible accommodations for students whose gender identity conflicts with their own physical anatomy,” McCrory said. “Yet the extreme Obama courts and administration deny this common sense flexibility at the expense of privacy for millions of boys and girls in our schools’ restrooms, locker rooms and shower facilities.”