North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) has issued Executive Order 24, which explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression by companies that do business with the state.
The Governor’s action comes in the wake of the state legislature’s repeal earlier this year of North Carolina’s controversial “bathroom law” that required transgender people, when using a public bathroom, to use the one associated with their “biological” sex.
While Executive Order 24 went into effect immediately upon the Governor’s signature on October 18, 2017, its operational details will be dependent upon guidance yet to be developed by the North Carolina Department of Administration (DOA).
As a practical matter, many employers already have policies in place banning such discrimination. Moreover, employers that are federal contractors are already prohibited from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity under a 2014 Executive Order signed by President Obama, and/or are subject to one or more state laws that ban LGBT discrimination by private sector employers.
A copy of Executive Order No. 24 is available here.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.