HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-01-03-LHRC-min Town of Lexington, Human Rights Committee Meeting
Friday, January 3rd, 2020
Lexington Community Center
8:16-9:52
Present:
Committee Members: Monami D. Roy (Chair), Tanya Gisolfi(Vice Chair), Georgia Swann
(Clerk), Fuang Ying Huang, Jeffrey Toronto, Cleveland Coats, Melissa Interess (Town
Manager's Office Member/Human Services Department), Johnny Cole (LPS member)
Liaisons and Guests: Scott Bokun (School Committee Liaison), Jill Hai (SB) Mark Corr (Chief
of Police), Christina Lin (Guest)
Meeting called to order at 8:16 AM, Quorum was present at 8:16 AM.
Chair Report
1. Expectations of the LHRC community members.
a. Be connected to the community at large and bring back any relevant concerns
from the community to the LHRC and educate the public on reporting options.
b. Attend/Promote/Support LHRC community events
c. Engage community groups to connect with the LHRC
2. Updates since last meeting
a. Met with BOS Liaison
b. Met with SC Liaison
c. Attended First Parish Service to talk about Community Conversation on Race
d. Met with LICA
e. Met with IAL
£ Met with Town Celebrations MLK Day Sub-Committee
3. Work that others are doing around town/Events of Interest
a. Social Justice Book Group 1 st Wednesday of the month (7 PM— 8:30 PM) Cary
Library, January Book(An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States),
b. The Association of Black Citizens of Lexington--MLK's 'The Purpose of
Education... Saturday, January 18, 2020, 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
c. LexPride presents Active Bystander Training, Sunday, January 19, 2020, 2:30 pm
to 4:30 pm, Pilgrim Congregational Church
4. Misc. Matters
• LHRC would like to encourage everyone to attend the MLK Day Event on January
20th, 2020 at 9:00 am at Grace Chapel and also continue to engage with their
networks. LHRC would also like to encourage attendance of MLK events sponsored
by ABCL and LexPride that will also be taking place throughout the day.
• LHRC would like to acknowledge the Anti-Semitic incidents and hate crimes that
have taken place across the country. Offering support and concern for the Jewish
community LHRC has reached out to LICA and the MetroWest.
• LHRC sends it condolences to Chief Corr and his family on the passing his father,
former police chief of Lexington Police, James F. Corr.
Committee Member Liaison Reports
CC: Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club
• January 4, 5, 18, Lexington Venue is holding a private screening of the film"Willie"
about Willie O'Ree; the first black player in the NHL. The film is produced by Bryant
McBride, a Lexington resident,proceeds benefit S.C.O.R.E. Boston a local
organization that has been providing inner city youth the opportunity to play ice
hockey since 1995.
• Chamber of Commerce Annual Gala takes place on January 30`h at Cary Hall.
• Acknowledgement of the passing of retired Chief of the Lexington Police Department
James F. Corr, 1927-2020.
TG: LICA
• Working on a list of contacts for LICA to share with congregations and also looking
into creating a central repository for recording reported incidents and tracking trends.
MI: Human Services Committee
• Working on updating committee charge and getting approval from the Select Board,
and membership. Also looking at taking on more a liaison role with community
groups and ultimately achieve more diversity on the committee.
JC: Lexington Public Schools
• Equity Audit School Committee Presentation will take place at the January 21, 2020
School Committee Meeting. Explanation of initial findings, recommendations
eventually a complete detailed written version will be submitted at a later date.
• Christina Lin LHS PTO President has coordinated some showings of the film "I'm
Not Racist Am IT' for school staff, students and the public.
GS: MLK Day Sub-Committee
• Three expert speakers (Dr. Elana Wolkoff, Dr. Stefani Harvey, and Dean Jamele
Adams) are locked in.
• Facilitator(Mia Ong)has been found and is also ready to offer two sessions for table
facilitator training.
• LHRC has been coordinating with the wider MLK Day Town Events Committee.
• Reminder that the conversations on these issues don't have to stop after the end of the
event. The real work happens in the home, with family and friends..
Civil Rights Incidents
• LHRC is working on providing clarity for the public on the role of the committee and
the procedure used when incidents are reported to the committee and if/how/when
information is shared with other organizations such as the LPD and LPS. The desire
is to have a written document explaining how the LHRC works to serve the
community.
School Discipline Disparity Workgroup Update
JC: Goal is making sure LPS is compliant with the law because it's a requirement and
because it's the right thing to do and sharing with families that steps are treated seriously.
• Exploring exclusion and making sure that the process is handled correctly
• Culture shift, need to be proactive, dealing with antecedent and not just being reactive
• Civil Rights Contact Officers will be Principals of buildings and JC, exploring the
right person for the role, whether it should be a counselor for example
• Mandated trainings for staff
• Updating online reporting form, currently under"Bullying"page wanting to make it
obvious in a more general area of the website
• Also want to update where the form is sent
• Clarification of process: what happens when allegation is made/documentation,
including with incidents don't rise to the level of legal civil rights violation but still
wanting to know trends
• Exploring positive alternatives to traditional student suspension
• A grant to explore therapeutic options, lads who have behavioral issue that would
have led to suspension
• Diversion programs
• Students are able to reach out through various methods including email,phone and
office hours, eventually the website will contain resources for various marginalized
populations and include information about reporting incidents. Anonymity of
reporting will be clarified as well as what action steps can be taken with anonymous
reports.
Public Comments
LexPride Liaison: What happens with anonymous reporting? Has experienced that people don't
want an investigation or follow-up to report, they just want someone to know. An
acknowledgement would be really meaningful to the community.
Not In Our Schools/Not In Our Town
TG: The concern is finding a uniform curriculum that will be consistent throughout LPS at all
levels, so the work starts early and continues to be offered the students through their career.
Perhaps NIOT would work for the community and using "Dismantling Race" or another custom
program within LPS for consistency but bringing it under the NIOS umbrella.
Understanding Our Town Workgroup Update
• No news at this time, workgroup will try to meet this month or email MI with specific
areas to focus on so data gathering can begin.
Approval of December Minutes
FYH : Comments about diversity of town employees and school employees was not included in
the minutes.
• Stanley Yap of CAAL spoke about a Chinese American applied for an engineering
position and was not called for an interview.
• Town of Lexington does not track the race of applicants to town jobs.
• The impression given was that there was no intention to track race of applicants.
• The leaders of the town have to have a will to increase diversity for changes to occur.
• Town is not acting on the recommendations of the 2020 committee.
Decide to move minutes discussion to end of meeting.
Understanding Past, Present and Future Asian Issues in Lexington
JC: The percentage of how school employees identify racially can be misleading because data
was collected by volunteer submission. In the entire state of MA only 1.5% of educators are
Asian and LPS is 4th in terms of Asian populations at 4.6% Asian. LPS does not ask applicants to
identify racially until they are hired and its only for reporting purposes due to legal issues with
collecting that data and the risk of being accused of preferring applicants based on race. There
are ways to promote minority candidate application that don't involve tracking.
MDR: There are questions about implicit bias, concerns about hiring committees and loss of
employees of color. Given that the LHRC has received anecdotal information about Asians
interviewing and not getting callbacks or the job, there is a concern about implicit bias is not a
factor. We would like to know what steps both the Town and School are taking to increase the
diversity of its applicant pool.
Select Board Liaison: EEOC websites in states that"in general it is assumed that pre-
employment requests for information will form hiring decisions therefore employers should not
request information that discloses or tends to disclose an applicant's race unless there is a
legitimate business need for this information; in addition, asking for race related information is
never allowed...." This is the legally preferred way to do things and the data should not be
tracked.
MDR: The role of LHRC in this issue and other issues is to connect with the communities so that
we are listening. We need to proactively reach out to the many cultural affinity groups including
CARL, Ca1Lex, IAL, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, KoLex, the Turkish community and others.
Outreach will be coordinated with Human Services.
TG: The issue is different on the town side because there is not an equivalent to JC working on
the municipal side.
Public Comments
LexPride Liaison: Agrees it's not good practice to ask for demographic information on
applications but there are other ways to improve the applicant pool to increase diversity. Also,
would like to ask that the data not be referred to as coming from the DATF because the taskforce
only received the data after collection and had serious issues with the data.
Approval of December Minutes
• Motion to approve minutes with amendments by FYH made by MI, Seconded by JT,
all in favor.
Public Comments
LexPride Liaison: LexPride and community partners are sponsoring three events on
Intersectionality, the first will be for faith and municipal leaders, the second for municipal and
school leaders and the third will be for the public. The date of the third event is March 7 I at
7pm. The purpose is to educate the public about intersectionality, hear experiences and see a
dramatic presentation on intersectionality.
Next Meeting Date and Time February 7th, 2020at 8:15 am.
Motion to Adjourn: TG
Seconded: FYH
Meeting Adjourned 9:52