HB2 Guts Core Worker Anti-discrimination Protections

Bill goes well beyond bathrooms and ends 35 years of basic civil rights for workers

Most of the attention paid to HB2 has thus far focused on the provisions repealing Charlotte’s recent anti-discrimination ordinance, especially the provisions addressing bathroom accommodations for transgendered residents. But it’s crucial to understand how much farther HB2 goes than just addressing bathroom accommodations—the bill actually guts core worker anti-discrimination protections that state law has long provided to workers.

Since 1985, workers in North Carolina who have been fired because of their religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, or handicap have been able to bring claims in state court under the common law theory of wrongful discharge in violation of public policy, based upon the public policy stated in action based on the North Carolina Equal Employment Practices Act (NCEEPA), N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143-422.1, et seq.