State of NC's Policies Protecting LGBT Students
North Carolina State Law (Ch. SL 2009-212)signed into law 30 June 2009
As of 2009, North Carolina's state law prohibits bullying and harassing behavior based on perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity as well as other enumerated characteristics such as race, color, religion, physical appearance. Bullying is defined as "any pattern of gestures or written, electronic, or verbal communications, or any physical act or any threatening communication" at school, school bus or a school-sponsored event. This law covers all PreK-12 public school, including charter schools. The law also requires each school system or unit to adopt this policy, to provide training to their school employees by March 2010, and to implement strategies to prevent school bullying and harassment.
Federal Laws Protecting LGBT Students
Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment (applies to public schools)
All students have a federal constitutional right to equal protection under the law.The means that schools have a duty to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students from harassment on a equal basis with all other students. If school officials failed to take action against anti-LGBT harassment because they believed that the LGBT student should have expected to be harassed, or because they believed that the LGBT student brought the harassment upon him or herself simply by being openly LGBT, or because the school was uneducated about LGBT issues or was uncomfortable addressing the situation, then the school has failed to provide equal protection to the student.
Title IX (applies to all schools that receive federal financial assistance)
Title IX of the Education Amendment Acts of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.Although Title IX does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, sexual harassment directed at an LGBT student is prohibited by Title IX if it is sufficiently severe and pervasive.
Title IX also prohibits gender-based harassment, including harassment on the basis of a student(s) failure to conform to stereotyped notions of masculinity and femininity.
1st Amendment, Equal Protection and Due Clauses (apples to public schools)
A transgender student(s) right to dress in accordance with his or her gender identity may also be protected under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.The First Amendment limits the rights of school officials to censor a student(s) speech or expression.Students also have a protected liberty interest (under the Due Process Clause) in their personal appearance.In addition, a transgender student also has the right under the Equal Protection Clause to be treated similarly to other students of the same gender identity.If the school treats the student differently than it would treat other students of the same gender identity (i.e. if it imposes a dress code on a male-to-female transsexual that is different than the dress code that is applied to biological females), then the rules applying in a sex discriminatory way (i.e. it is applying the ode differently based on the student(s) biological sex.
Equal Access Act
Under the EAA, a federal law passed in 1984 that applies to all public secondary schools that receive federal funding, a secondary school that provides a meeting place during non-instructional time for any voluntary, student-initiated club is required to provide the same meeting facilities to all non-curriculum related clubs no matter what their “religious, political, philosophical, or other” beliefs or discussions may be.This law protects student's rights to form and attend gay-straight alliances (GSA) as long as there are other extracurricular clubs on campus.If a school does not permit other extracurricular clubs to meet, however, it does not have to permit a GSA.Since nearly all schools permit some student groups to meet (e.g. cheerleaders, chess, etc.), the difficult question under EAA is which groups are curriculum-related and which are not.If a GSA is found to be curriculum-related, then the EAA does not require the school to permit the GSA.If they are considered non-curricular, the school does have to allow the GSA.
(Source: National Center for Lesbian Rights Harassment and Discrimination: A Legal Overview)
http://www.safeschoolscoalition.org/RG-law_policy_guidance.html 
