First day of Work at the LCHR

This is my first journal entry about my internship with the Human Rights Commission of Lincoln (Lincoln Commission on Human Rights - LCHR). I initiated the internship when I knew that I was going to take this course for my Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs minor. Though this is technically is my second day at the office, I truly started doing work today.

Before I write about my experience and the things I learned today, I would like to write a little bit of information about the Commission and what the people do for people in Lincoln. LCHR is charged with the mission of investigating complaints of discrimination, striving to prevent all forms of illegal discrimination and to assure and foster equal opportunity for all citizens of the City. The LCHR also provides community education and assistance in order for people to know and understand their rights and responsibilities under the law. The jurisdiction of the Commission is only within Lincoln. I also learned that the LCHR hosts one of the largest Civil Rights conferences in the Midwest every year.

As for my duties, I am responsible for displaying the records of the LCHR in their annual report to the city, creating a historical timeline of civil rights in Lincoln for the LCHR’s city outreach on television, and interviewing individuals who come in with discrimination complaints.

The first couple weeks are dedicated to the annual report, and I think it is interesting to learn about the discrimination cases conducted by the LCHR. Here are the facts I have recorded for the 2010 year.

In 2010, 91 complaints were recorded. 34 were male, 56 were female, and 1 complaint was made by a family. As for ethnic and national origins represented, there are 17 Blacks, 7 Hispanics, 1 Iraqi, 2 Biracial, 2 Asians, 1 Cuban, 1 Croatian/Serb, 1 Honduran, 1 Guatamalan, 5 Mexicans, and 48 Whites. As for the number of complaint topics, there are 18 Age, 33 Race, 27 Retaliation, 22 Disability, 32 Sex, 4 Color, 2 Marital Status, 23 National Origin, 4 Religion, and 5 Familial Status related complaints made by 91 clients. On average, there are 5 to 7 complaints of discrimination recorded by the LCHR per month. Lastly, there are three areas the LCHR deals with for discrimination: employment, housing, and public accommodation.

After my first day at the office, I started to make a lot of connections between human/civil rights on a local city level with human rights on an international level. Though there are a number of complaints made by individuals, only a small fraction of those complaints are upheld by the Commissioners during their monthly hearing. This reminded me of how the European Court of Human Rights also upholds a small fraction of cases despite the number they address within an year.

I look forward to going back and learning more from my advisors about their thoughts on human rights as well as experience the work of real human/civil rights issues.