Poor children may get a leg up if Commissioner Jack Donovan has his way.
The issue of adding disadvantaged children as a new protected class to the city code of ordinances was brought up at Donovan's recommendation during Wednesday's Equal Opportunity Committee meeting, among other issues such as education.
However, Stephanie Marchman, assistant city attorney, said there needs to be more research on the legal viability of the proposal. She added that no other cities in the country have this protection.
Donovan was not at Wednesday's meeting to address the Equal Opportunity Committee's questions about the proposed addition.
"We need more clarification from him," said Commissioner Jeanna Mastrodicasa.
During the committee's last meeting in April, Commissioner Donovan suggested adding an amendment to Chapter 8, the discrimination section of the city code of ordinances, to establish a category where the city "will not tolerate discrimination of children based on their socio-economic status."
The chapter currently prevents discrimination based on race, color, creed, religion, gender, national origin, age, handicap, marital, family status, gender identity and sexual orientation.
"If declared a discriminatory class, we would have some teeth to allocate resources to children with special needs to compensate for what their families may be unable to provide in social and economic terms," Donovan said.
Donovan added that by "social terms" he was referring to education.
Donovan also sees the proposal as a tool to make sure disadvantaged children get to school.
"Often a child wants to go, but their parents don't have the means to get them to school. This leads to a very high truancy rate, which has a high correlation with crime rates and drop-out rates among teenagers," he said.
Donovan feels optimistic that the protective class could help children achieve the American dream, he said.
"I think both government and city and our community in general need to take a different approach than before so that every child has the right of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness because that translates to equal opportunity," Donovan said.
