Hattiesburg City Council looks to follow Starkville with diversity resolution

Council to vote on diversity resolution

Hattiesburg City Council is expected this afternoon to consider a resolution that would spell out the city’s official stance when it comes to discrimination and diversity.

Council will be asked to vote on a resolution that would be the city’s first policy statement on diversity.

“It would not be an ordinance,” City Attorney Charles Lawrence said. “But if (adopted), it would be the official policy of the City of Hattiesburg as it relates to diversity and treatment of all people in the city.

“It would be our principle and our policy, but it would not be a law. For it be law, it would have to be an ordinance.”

The resolution is similar to one adopted last month in Starkville that was the first in the state to specifically include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender protection in a city’s official, policy statement on diversity.

Hattiesburg American
2/17/14