Sisters & Brothers:
Justice delayed is justice denied. I was part of a group that looked over cases and then encouraged filing complaints with metro, state and federal agencies. We were dissatisfied with the long time between intake of a complaint and resolution, and with the eventual outcomes as well.
The problem is not individual, but structural, and political. The tasks of outreach, alternative dispute resolution and targeted case management are not accomplished when budget is limited and the big dogs, running in the tall grass, seem less than enamored of prosecuting potential political party donors?
Mediation and conciliation agreements, prized by federal, state and municipal enforcement bodies, objectively favor corporations and government agencies at the expense of complainants. The company or government agency just says: we ain’t done nothin' wrong, but we promise never to do it again. Further, we'll agree to make the aggrieved party, the complainant, whole, and we'll give back pay and promotion.
The Kafka-esque irony is that conciliation agreements are a joyous outcome for enforcement agencies, since there is not enough money and staff to litigate the complaint avalanch. Irony number two - the discriminated-against also view agreements as victories, having neither the money nor the years to wait while the processes lumber on.
I was at the 50th anniversary of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh NC this past April. As a SNCC veteran, I thought Attorney General Eric Holder, spoke eloquently about the Justice Department’s newfound energy in enforcing anti-discrimination laws.
Ironic isn’t it that on September 24 of this year the Department of Justice’s FBI component broke into seven homes and an office belonging to activists in the peace and justice community in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan? The eleven subpoenaed activists will have to testify before a federal grand jury — where they are not permitted to have a lawyer with them.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s I was involved, here in the U.S., in support of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Using the logic of the recent raids, I could have been imprisoned way back then, under the support for terrorism laws. After all, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were put on the terrorist list by then-President Ronald Reagan. Did that make me a terrorist?
Let’s return, specifically, to the KY Commission on Human Rights. Months ago at a conference on disability, organized by the Kentucky commission we tonight honor. I asked how many commissioners ever filed “commissioner’s complaints.” The commissioner with the longest tenure, I think it was eleven years, responded: “What is a commissioner’s complaint?”
I was shocked. Commissioners have the right, no, the duty, to file complaints, in their names, against offending companies and agencies. This disgusting dereliction of duty, from my experience, is no better or worse than at all the other agencies.
Some commissioners aren’t cognizant of the two roles commissions must play - enforcing the law, AND using their good offices to bring about an egalitarian climate. Commissioners and citizens must understand this. I teach at Bellarmine University, and students in one of my classes are here, in the audience. Why isn’t this audience packed with hundreds of students? Is it lack of funding that prevents federal, state and local agencies from going into the high schools and colleges to explain why we need enforcement agencies? What would Rev. Martin Luther King say about this?
To conclude: The historic work of the KY Commission on Human Rights needs to be better funded, and expanded…You now know that I am an unrepentant hellraiser. My motto is, and I have cleaned it up and made it gender-neutral: If you grab them around the neck, their hearts and minds will follow.
Four little girls were murdered in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 by racists who bombed the church where they were attending Sunday school. We must never forget their sacrifice, their martyrdom, and the supreme price paid by James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, Herbert Lee, Vernon Dahmer-and so many more.
They, and hundreds of thousands of freedom fighters, over many years, are to be thanked for the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. We can pay homage to the precious collective memory of the fallen in battle by creating a climate where companies and agencies that discriminate don't just get slapped on the wrist, but get the living defecation knocked out of them.
Then, and only then, will fifty years of the KY Commission on Human Rights be the landmark we all shall cherish.
Thank you.
Ira Grupper
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