Bonner profile: Anna Obermayer and human rights support
by Julia Berner-Tobin
Senior history major Anna Obermayer is one of the sixty Bonner students on campus. However, she is the only one working at the City of Richmond Human Rights Commission.
“The commission is based on enforcing city-state-co-federal human rights laws and educating the community about these types of issues and laws,” said Obermayer.
People might often believe that the Human Rights Commission only deals with issues regarding discrimination against African Americans, but the Commission faces a host of other issues that are just as prevalent in the community.
The Human Rights Commission in Richmond focuses mainly on discrimination on the basis of race, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation or age. With age and sexual orientation, however, the Human Rights Commission can only take the complaint of a person. This is because the City of Richmond does not cover any of the protected areas in regards to age or sexual orientation.
The Director of the Human Rights Commission, Ron Church, believes that the lack of human rights protection in regards to sexual orientation needs to be addressed across the country.
“If a landlord doesn’t want to rent to a gay couple, they don’t have to,” said Church.
Church described a typical case that the commission in Richmond has to deal with - “One case might be that a female believes that she was not hired because of her gender. She would come in here and say: ‘I applied for this job and I was told that I was not qualified. I know the male who got hired and he has way less experience and less education than me, yet he was hired.’ Also, both the male and female could have been hired but the male was hired at a higher pay,” said Ron.
The Commission is looking to achieve equality for each person, but never special treatment. Discrimination can also be directed towards whites, males and others in majority or privileged groups. Also, in cases regarding justice and discrimination, the Commission looks to protect both sides.
“We act as an unbiased party in the investigation of the company. We aim to protect the companies who are being wrongfully sued and the people that are being fired from their jobs on the basis of discriminating companies. We look at all different sides of the problem,” said Obermayer.
In one year, the Human Rights Commission might get 297 investigation calls, and are able to resolve 92 percent of them.
“Only 8 percent of our pre-intake calls move forward, and that’s an amazing number. No one else in the area even comes close to that number. The success is due to communication and education with the community on what is right and what is wrong. If you don’t know what the civil law is, how do you know that you are violating it?” said Church.
If the pre-intake shows that an investigation needs to be done, or the person that the complaint is against does not want to talk to the Commission, then an investigation begins. After the investigation, the Commission declares that the issue is either one of probable cause or no probable cause. If there is a probable cause, a more in-depth investigation ensues and then the case might go to a hearing.
“In an accusation, there is your story, and there is the company’s story; somewhere in there is the truth. What we determine is whether the truth falls closer to your side, or closer to their side,” said Church. “The individual who is wronged will receive some sort of monetary compensation and the respondent will be put into some sort of training and education so they don’t make the same mistakes. Discrimination isn’t always intentional.”
On Wednesdays, Obermayer spends the whole day at the Commission. This past Wednesday, Obermayer’s day was full of preparing for upcoming events or cases in which the Commission is involved. She started the day watching a movie called “Race and the Power of Illusion.”
“We are going to do a workshop with high school students later in the year, so I am working on writing a synopsis and coming up with study questions for the high school students,” said Obermayer.
Obermayer also spent a large part of her day researching the Americans with Disabilities Amendment Act (ADA), which is a federal civil rights law that directly affects the Commission’s work in the community.
“The ADA was passed in 1990 and was vaguely worded; the new act narrows the definition of disability,” said Obermayer.
In some cases, the Supreme Court would use the vague wording to exempt certain people from falling into the disability category. Obermayer has been going over each part of the law to see exactly what will change when the law comes into effect.
“The new act gives protection to the most people possible, and it will go into effect in January.”
Church had great things to say about Obermayer and the work that she is doing as a Bonner.
“We don’t use Bonner students as filing clerks here, we suspect a lot out of them. Obermayer is someone [with] who I can say ‘Here’s what I need,’ and she knows exactly what to do. We need three or four more Obermayers next year,” said Church. “I am trying to figure out how to get her to not graduate, so I can get another year out of her.
Obermayer is starting to look for her replacement for the time when she graduates in May. There are junior internship positions available now. As a junior intern, Earlham students would work as Obermayer’s assistant in the research and casework that she does.
“We also need two research people to help build a case law library in addition to all the human rights laws. It would be easier to have a real database of all the laws we need in the case studies than just doing Internet research,” said Church.
Discrimination is something many people are passionate about. It is seen as a “major issue” in America today. “Injustice should tick you off,” said Church. “But you can either stand on a street corner and scream about injustice or you can get involved and make the injustice justice.”
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