Human Rights Commission adopts goals for 2017-18

Sticking with its goals from last year for the most part, the Human Rights Commission did make some changes for the upcoming year at its July 24 meeting. The objectives for the previous year included community engagement, best practices, disparate access, engagement with the Austin Police Department, and to “address community issues specific to race, policing, and criminal justice plans and strategies for meeting these goals and objectives.” After some discussion about the difference between the fourth and fifth objectives, Commissioner Joe Miguez proposed that engagement with APD could be removed as a goal since the commission almost always interacts with the department on race issues, which he argued is covered in the fifth objective. In addition to Miguez’s amendment, best practices was changed to “best commission practices,” and “disparate access” was changed to “disparate impact.” The commission voted unanimously to approve the adjusted goals.