DC Office of Human Rights Achieves 2011 Goals

Today the DC Office of Human Rights (OHR) and the DC Commission on Human Rights (COHR) released the Annual Highlights Report for Fiscal Year 2011 (FY11). OHR was created in 1977, and its mission is to eradicate discrimination, increase equal opportunity and protect human rights in the District of Columbia.  The Report provides useful information about the DC Human Rights Act and other laws enforced by the agency, details services provided by OHR and provides an overview of highlights from FY11.  Agency highlights from the Report issued today include:

• In the area of enforcement, OHR completely eliminated its case backlog in 2010 and continued to maintain a significantly reduced case backlog in 2011
• In FY11, OHR recorded a total of 339 new discrimination complaints
• In 2010, OHR expanded its enforcement function by using the authority granted to the agency Direc­tor under the Human Rights Act, known as the Director’s Inquiry, and allocated specific resources to investigate allegations or possible patterns of discrimination in the District. A total of 94 Director’s Inquiries were investigated in 2009-2011.
• In FY11, OHR hosted community forums to address issues facing Limited English and Non-English Proficient community members in accessing government services
• In FY10, OHR conducted training for 788 DC government employees designated with EEO responsibilities from over 65 agencies
• More than 7,800 users from District government and the private sector utilized OHR’s E-learning modules for EEO, Diversity and Language Access

The DC Office of Human Rights leads the District’s efforts to protect the rights of citizens that live, visit or work in the District of Columbia. The work of the agency helps improve the quality of life in the District by promoting and enforcing what is regarded as one of the most comprehensive human rights statutes in the nation – the DC Human Rights Act.  To learn more about the work of the DC Office of Human Rights and the DC Commission on Human Rights visit www.ohr.dc.gov.

To view the entire report, select here