Margaret Spellings said on Friday that she wanted to “clarify perhaps some confusion about the guidance that went out” to the UNC System campuses in a memo dated Tuesday, April 5.
The memo told campuses that the controversial House Bill 2 did not limit the universities abilities to adopt nondiscrimination policies toward their own employees but did write that the campuses “must require every multiple-occupancy bathroom and changing facility to be designated for and used only by persons based on their biological sex.”
The memo drew criticism from LGBT advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina, Lambda Legal and Equality NC, which have filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the law.
Spellings said she did not believe the legislature thoroughly understood the ripple-effect of House Bill 2 when it was passed during a special session of the General Assembly.
“It was, we believe, hastily drawn, perhaps without fully considering all of the implications that were at hand,” Spellings said.
Spellings said that the memo that was sent to campuses was in response to a number of questions coming in to the system offices, and that it was intended as a “just the facts, ma’am, kind of a document.”
“It is in no way an endorsement of this law,” Spellings added. “That’s not my job. I’m not a member of the North Carolina General Assembly. I’m a state office holder who is charged with upholding the laws of this state.
“We are not in a position to pick and choose which laws.”
Spellings said that she has spoken with members of the General Assembly about the impact of the law on the system and reiterated to them the importance of having university campuses that are welcoming to all, as is the reputation of campuses in North Carolina.
“We want to maintain that full and open kind of culture and climate in our institutions,” Spelling said.
Spellings said that she is “channeling” the concerns she is hearing from students, faculty members and university leadership from different campuses while she is on her tour of all of the system campuses since being installed as President in March.
“I think there’s a general anxiety for starters,” she recalled. “And then I think there are issues, and this is the kind of thing I’m hearing, that professional conferences are in question, recruitment of faculty and staff – far beyond those who are directly affected by the law, those people who are transgender – but students and faculty broadly who think, ‘Well, if this is a place that is unwelcoming of that particular class of people, what does that mean for others?”
Spellings clarified that system leadership was not consulted on the law and the implications that it carried.
“Were it up to me, I would not recommend enactment of such a thing,” Spellings said. “Because I do think it creates this idea that is far beyond the particular aspects of this bathroom transgender matter.”
Spellings said that she is concerned over the impact the legislation will have on the university system.
“I think it sends a chill through these institutions for staff, faculty and student recruitment.”
Spellings added she would be in touch with the US Department of Education in hopes to learn their intentions regarding the law’s impact on federal funding and grants.
As far as enforcement of this legislation when it comes to making members of each campus community use the bathroom that corresponds with their birth certificate rather than their gender identity, UNC General Counsel Thomas Shanahan the law is “silent on enforcement, doesn’t address it at all and doesn’t give the authority to anyone to enforce it, in its language.”
That statement led Spellings to say, “We don’t intend to enforce anything.”
You are descriminating, And this Needs to stop!! Accept people for who they are,
NOT WHO YOU THINK THEY SHOULD BE!!