The Anne Arundel County Council unanimously passed the county’s first-ever comprehensive civil rights statute at its Monday night meeting.
While the county already has protections and infrastructure in place to combat housing discrimination, the new law, drafted by County Executive Steuart Pittman’s office, expands protections to private employment and at public accommodations such as hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, sports stadiums and retail establishments.
The bill prohibits residents from being treated differently by employers and owners, managers or employees of public facilities on the basis of age, ancestry, citizenship, color, creed, disability, familial status, gender identity or expression, marital status, national origin, occupation, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or source of income.
Complaints previously adjudicated by the Maryland Commission for Civil Rights and U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission now will be reviewed by the county’s Human Relations Commission. This raises the likelihood and timeliness of a complaint being addressed as both the state and federal agencies have large backlogs, said Asha Smith, director of the Office of Equity and Human Rights.
Anne Arundel is the only large Maryland county without a civil rights ordinance. Montgomery County, Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Howard County, and Prince George’s County all have longstanding ones, according to the bill’s legislative summary drafted by the county’s Office of Law. They’re also commonplace in municipalities throughout the country, Smith added.
“I think that the absence of a civil rights statute says something about the jurisdiction, and it may not be what we intend to say,” Smith said at a County Council work session April 9. “It’s important that members of the public know that civil rights are important in Anne Arundel County.”
The 13-member, all-volunteer Human Relations Commission will receive training from the Office of Law as it takes on the new role, Smith said. The Office of Law also will ensure that the commission follows appropriate legal protocols in cases.
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Smith said Monday.
The commission’s chair Eugene Peterson said the group’s limited responsibility was something that troubled members for a while. Members said they didn’t believe they had the tools to effectively address discrimination in the county with only authority over housing matters, he said.
“We saw a hole in our area of responsibility and how constricted we were as opposed to other counties,” Peterson said Tuesday.
The expanded authority also takes better advantage of the skills and knowledge bases of the members.
“The people that serve on the commission have a broad background in a lot of different areas,” Peterson said. “Some of them are involved in other human rights or civil rights groups. Because we’re broad based with participation from each councilmanic district, you get a regional feel for how things are going.”
Ben Barlow, an Annapolis labor and employment attorney, said working with counties with these kinds of laws saves his clients a lot of pain.
“It’s an extremely frustrating process for employees and employers together,” Barlow said. “In my practice counties — [Prince George’s] County, Montgomery County, counties that have a human rights commission that deals with complaints like this — I’ve found it to be a much more friendly process for clients, and clients tend to, no guarantees, but clients tend to have a hearing earlier.”
In 2020, the Human Relations Commission was codified in the county charter by voters in a general election ballot referendum.
“Justice delayed is justice denied and if people have really been discriminated against in the workplace and they’re waiting months if not years to even have their case heard, that is justice denied,” said council member Julie Hummer, a Laurel Democrat.
The civil right statute follows the successful passage by Anne Arundel lawmakers of a bill in the legislature that was a priority of Pittman’s to allow the commission to enforce subpoena requests.
It’s part of a larger effort by Pittman’s office to bolster the human rights bureau of the county. He created the county’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Department in 2020 and named Pete Hill the department’s director in 2021.
Last year, Smith took over as head of the office which was rebranded as The Office of Equity and Human Rights. During Hill’s leadership, he and Smith and a part-time assistant were the only members of the office. It’s now a four-member office with two new positions created ahead of the current fiscal year and two transferred from the county executive’s office, according to the fiscal 2024 budget.
It has a $626,000 budget.
