The Topic Civil Rights refers to the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, ... A Promise to Shake Up Stat | Sex Press
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The Topic Civil Rights refers to the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, ... A Promise to Shake Up Stat

Submitted by admin on Tue, 2007-04-17 11:00.

New York has the oldest anti-discrimination law in the country – dating back to 1945 – but when it comes to implementing its policies, the state lags behind. The New York State Division of Human Rights is saddled with a backlog of thousands of complaints filed by people who claim that they have been discriminated against. Under the current review process, it can take three years or more for a case to be resolved.

Inspired by Spitzer's “One New York ” theme set out at his inauguration, in which he acknowledged “the civil rights movement still has chapters to be written,” Gibson hopes to overhaul the New York State Division of Human Rights .

More than 85 percent of the complaints to the Division of Human Rights involve employment discrimination, the majority from people of color, followed by bias based on sex, disability, age, national origin, creed, conviction record, and sexual orientation.

Gibson's first priority is dealing with the backlog of cases dating back three or more years – and her goal is to resolve each case in 465 days or less.

The agency is also actively inviting civil and human rights groups around the state to come to its offices to see what it is doing to improve things.

Craig Gurian, a civil rights attorney at the Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York , who has played a major role in strengthening the city's human rights law, welcomes Gibson's appointment.

“During the Pataki years and for that matter before that, in a lot of ways the State Division was entirely non-functional,” said Gurian. “It bore no relation to a prosecuting and investigating agency,” a criticism he makes of many such human rights commissions around the country.

While he said that he did not know Gibson previously, he believes that she thinks of her job as a civil rights enforcement job, not an administrative or bureaucratic position and that she has hired civil rights lawyers for the staff.

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