Title
Vote on a request to approve Chatham County Non-Discrimination Ordinance
Abstract
On March 23, 2016, the General Assembly enacted and Governor McCrory signed HB 2 (S.L. 2016-3). Among other things, HB 2 preempted local governments from imposing “any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment … [or] … in places of public accommodation.”
On March 30, 2017, the General Assembly enacted and Governor Cooper signed HB 142 (S.L. 2017-4). HB 142 repealed HB 2 and, among other things, provided that “no local government in this State may enact or amend an ordinance regulating private employment practices or regulating public accommodations.” Significantly, HB 142 provided that this provision expired December 1, 2020. That means that local governments are no longer preempted from adopting ordinances that regulate or prohibit discrimination in employment and public accommodations. Since then, a number of local governments have adopted nondiscrimination ordinances. These include the towns of Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, and Apex, Orange County and Buncombe County, and the cities of Durham, Greensboro, Asheville, and Charlotte.
At the July 19 meeting, the Board of Commissioners asked staff to draft a proposed ordinance for consideration at the Board’s August meeting. In doing so, staff reviewed other local governments’ ordinances. While there are similarities, they are not identical. Given Chatham County’s proximity to Orange County and its municipalities, staff decided to model the proposed ordinance on the those adopted by Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough (staff determined that Orange County is not a good model as it incorporated amendments into a preexisting housing discrimination ordinance, something that Chatham County does not have). The differences in the proposed Chatham ordinance are:
- the inclusion of “natural hair or hairstyles” as a protected characteristic (only Carrboro included this characteristic);
- a provision stating that a violation is not subject to criminal prosecution (Equality North Carolina, a key advocate for nondiscrimination ordinances, is currently advocating for decriminalization); and
- a section that recognizes that, in case of conflict, state and federal law prevail over the ordinance (while this is true as a matter of law, staff sees value in including this provision in the ordinance - Chapel Hill included a provision that is conceptually equivalent)