Late Monday, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, announced that Cooper would not file a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit filed by a transgender student in Virginia, challenging the school district’s refusal to let the student use public bathrooms assigned to students of the opposite biological sex. Meantime, Cooper’s campaign for governor called McCrory a bully for attempting to participate in the lawsuit.
Republican Gov. Pat McCrory on Saturday had asked Cooper to join South Carolina and other states fighting the lawsuit and a directive by the Obama administration forcing school districts nationally to provide accommodations for transgender students. Cooper is running in the 2016 campaign against McCrory for governor.
Jamal Little, a spokesman for Cooper’s campaign, posted a notice yesterday saying McCrory “bullied” Gavin Grant, the transgender student, and linking the dispute to the debate over refugees fleeing the war in Syria. After noting that the governor is seeking a temporary ban on resettlement of Syrian refugees in North Carolina until greater security clearance measures are in place — a stance Cooper shares — Little wrote:
“This week, [McCrory has] found another group to politicize. Adolescence is hard enough without being bullied by an elected official. Next week, who knows who’ll be the target of a governor whose only path to re-election is dividing North Carolina.”
Carolina Journal reported addtional details on the lawsuit debate here.
Rick Henderson is managing editor of Carolina Journal.