Apple, IBM, Salesforce, and Airbnb are among the 68 companies helping the DOJ take North Carolina to court

Despite the national outrage over North Carolina's controversial law that restricts how transgender people can use bathrooms and prevents local governments from passing nondiscrimination ordinances, the law is still on the books.

The US Justice Department is in the process of taking North Carolina to court about it, having filed a complaint in May.

And now 68 companies, ranging from major companies to high-flying startups, are backing the DoJ's attempts to strike down the law. Through an organization called the Human Rights Campaign, these companies signed an amicus brief backing the DoJ.

The companies who signed the brief are:

Accenture, Affirm, Airbnb, American Airlines, Apple, Biogen, Bloomberg LP, Boehinger Ingleheim USA, Box, Brocade Communications System, Capital One Financial , Cisco Systems, Consumer Technology Association, Corning Incorporated, Cummins Dropbox, Dupont, eBay, Etsy, Everlaw, Expedia, FiftyThree, Galxyz, Gap General Electric Company, Glassdoor, Grokker, Hilton Worldwide, Honor, IBM , IKEA North American Services, LLC, Instacart, Intel , John Hancock, Levi Strauss & Co., LinkedIn , Logitech, Marriott International, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Microsoft , Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, Morgan Stanley, Nextdoor, NIKE, OppenheimerFunds, Orbitz Worldwide, PayPal, Pepo, Quotient, RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Red Hat, Replacements, Ltd., Salesforce, Slack, SV Angel LLC, Symantec , TD Bank, NA, Teespring, The Dow Chemical Company, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, ThirdLove, Tumblr, UnifyID, United Airlines, Williams-Sonoma, Yelp, ZestFinance, and Zynga.

"These companies are sending a powerful message to transgender people and their families that America's leading businesses have their back," said HRC President Chad Griffin in a press release.

It's a relatively new phenomenon that companies have started throwing their weight behind social issues, particularly state laws that appear to discriminate against LGBT people.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has previously been the ringleader of these efforts, but now many major businesses in many industries are stepping up and speaking out on their own.

In the wake of the Orlando shooting, IBM for instance, published a strong message last month on how it supports its LGBT employees, urging other business to do more, too.

Interestingly, HRC was able to hire lawyer Ted Olson to write the brief. He fought against marriage equality as a solicitor General under President Bush.

HRC cites estimates that this law has cost North Carolina more than 1,700 jobs and has placed more than a half a billion dollars of economic activity at risk.