North Carolina Officials Assure the State Can Discriminate

Posted on April 15, 2008
Filed Under Gay News Blog

A rule in the state’s personnel handbook showed up online that wasn’t supposed to be there. It said that the state bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. So not true:

Stam “State officials Monday removed a ban on anti-gay discrimination from an online copy of the state’s personnel handbook. North Carolina does not ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in hiring, discipline and pay of state employees. The State Personnel Commission’s attempt to change that was rejected in January by the state Rules Review Commission as overstepping the other appointed board’s authority. But the rule change showed up all the same in one of two copies of the handbook on the Office of State Personnel’s Web site. The other had the correct version. ‘Somehow it mistakenly got put on the Web site,’ personnel office spokeswoman Margaret Jordan said. House Republican Leader Paul Stam last week criticized the proposed rule, similar to measures that have failed in the legislature, and questioned why it appeared in the handbook.”