A federal appeals court will hear arguments Aug. 3 on whether the counting of university students in Hattiesburg’s population diluted minority participation on the city council.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has been asked to overturn a Mississippi judge’s ruling that the city did not violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by including dormitory students in population calculations used to draw the city’s wards.
Some Hattiesburg residents sued the city in 2006 to remove college students from the population mix. They want new wards drawn to reflect 2006 Census data that suggested blacks would comprise at least 55 percent of the total voting age population when transient students were excluded.
The plaintiffs said the city council unfairly included more than 3,000 transient students at the University of Southern Mississippi and William Carey University in the equation used to redraw Hattiesburg wards in 2002.
They contend the counting of the students meant Hattiesburg’s Black population was concentrated in two wards, while three others were majority White.
U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett ruled in 2008 that the plaintiffs did not show that Hattiesburg’s new wards violate the one-person, one-vote principle. Starrett said it would impossible to draw three majority-Black city wards without excluding the students.
The city, in court documents, said the plaintiffs did not prove any discrimination. The city said removing the dormitory students from the population is “an impermissible method”’ of calculating the number of residents. The city said the plaintiffs want to spread the student population among five wards, which cannot legally be done.
