Bucks County Human Relations Council held its first “Unity Meeting” July 26 to help officials prepare for potential discrimination complaints in the approaching school year.
“Our state is sitting at third or fourth in the country for hate, and it can not continue,” said Bernard Hoffman, Bucks County HRC chairman, who added tackling it locally requires a cooperative approach. “One of the steps is for the human relations groups to band together so at least we have a network. We need a united group to work together and have a communicative team.”
Kevin Antoine, Newtown Township Human Relations Commission chair, said the plan was to gather HRC officers from across the county; so they can develop a “plan of unity” while dealing with possible discrimination cases at the K-12 level for the upcoming school year.
Antoine is also associate vice president, government relations and chief diversity officer at Bucks County Community College.
Bucks County commissioners established the Bucks County Human Relation Council in May 1995 as an outgrowth of the Violence Prevention Task Force.
The 13-member council is dedicated to valuing diversity within the county and serving as a resource for victims of hate crimes or discrimination in housing, employment, equal access or fair treatment.
Multiple boroughs and townships also have their own human relations commissions that have jurisdiction and enforcement authority to ensure equality for all citizens within their municipalities.
Members of the Bucks County HRC and commission representatives from Newtown Borough, Doylestown Borough, Yardley Borough, Solebury Township and The Pair Up Society wasted no time discussing the unwanted prejudice in the area that many, including youth, have been facing.
“I think it would benefit us to have a comprehensive approach to how we handle issues,” Antoinne said. “There are going to be similar issues that pop up in different jurisdictions and what we don’t want is a hodgepodge of reactions.”
The different districts also have very similar ordinances that can help serve as a starting point for the HRCs to collaborate.
Members of multiple HRCs also brought up their worries about the public not knowing about their presence.
“It’s not just the commission learning but my concern is community education. I don’t think the community is aware of our existence and our purpose,” Joyce Hadley, the Bucks County HRC deputy chair said.
Along with having a more united approach when dealing with cases the council also wants to further their engagement and presence with the public. Some HRCs talked about partnering with different peace-serving organizations, setting up a table at community events, public forums and working on getting more of an image in the media.
“We know that the HRC statewide committee was established because in the Pennsylvania nondiscrimination law, LGBTQ+ people don’t have any protection and that’s the essence of why the HRCs were started,” a comission member said. “I think we have to remember why it was started, why it’s there and how legislation still hasn’t been amended yet to conclude that. So while we work on our local stuff the overriding game is for it to become a statewide.”
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