Civil Rights

Civil Rights Blog Seattle Office for Civil Rights

Seattle Office for Civil Rights Blog

Community Speaks: Help shape the future of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights!

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Please join us for a discussion about the Seattle Office for Civil Rights and your community. Participants will receive a $25 gift card. Food will be provided! The Seattle Office for Civil Rights is a government agency that works to advance civil rights and end barriers to equity. It enforces laws against illegal discrimination in employment, […]

Workgroup recommends less jail, better coordination, and healing for people living with criminal history

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A City Workgroup, led by the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, was tasked with finding better ways to help people living with criminal history. The Workgroup recommends that the City invest in healing practices to address incarceration-related trauma, offer more support for those living with criminal history, and move away from using the criminal legal […]

LGBTQ housing discrimination all too common

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Redwolf Painter, a senior systems engineer relocating to Seattle from the San Francisco Bay Area, thought it would be easier to rent an apartment here. But after applying for rentals more than a dozen times—and being denied each time—Redwolf began to suspect a more disturbing pattern. “On the phone, I had a lot of very […]

SOCR stands with our transgender and gender non-conforming communities

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The Seattle Office for Civil Rights stands with our transgender community members in dismay and outrage at the federal government’s attempts to deny legal recognition to transgender people in federally-funded institutions. This attempt to redefine gender as “immutable,” and based on a person’s assigned sex at birth, negates the lives, experiences and humanity of over […]

Fair Chance Housing law opens a door to opportunity

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Augustine Cita had a good union job, working for $28 an hour as a marble mason. By the usual standards, he should have been a great candidate to rent an apartment. But he could not get past the first interview. “I put in applications at 10 to 12 places,” Augustine said. “Nobody would touch me. […]