1
1 BEFORE THE STATE OF INDIANA
2 CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION
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PUBLIC MEETING OF JULY 29, 2016
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9 PROCEEDINGS
10 in the above-captioned matter, before the Indiana
11 Civil Rights Commission, Alpha Blackburn,
12 Chairperson, taken before me, Lindy L. Meyer,
13 Jr., a Notary Public in and for the State of
14 Indiana, County of Shelby, at the Indiana
15 Government Center South, Conference Center,
16 Rooms 1 & 2, 402 West Washington Street,
17 Indianapolis, Indiana, on Friday, July 29, 2016
18 at 1:11 o'clock p.m.
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20
21 William F. Daniels, RPR/CP CM d/b/a
ACCURATE REPORTING OF INDIANA
22 12922 Brighton Avenue
Carmel, Indiana 46032
23 (317) 848-0088
2
1 APPEARANCES:
2 COMMISSION MEMBERS:
3 Alpha Blackburn, Chairperson
Kent Hull
4 Sheryl Edwards
5
INDIANA CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION
6 By Richard A. Hite, Director/Secretary
& Barbara Malone, Deputy Director
7 Indiana Government Center North
100 North Senate Avenue, Room N300
8 Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
On behalf of the Commission.
9
10 OTHER COMMISSION STAFF PRESENT:
11 Shumura Trammell
Debra Bluitt
12 John Burkhardt
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1 1:11 o'clock a.m.
July 29, 2016
2 - - -
3 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: The Indiana
4 Civil Rights Commission is now in public meeting,
5 and you have in your notebooks the agenda. We
6 are shy of a quorum. Comm. Young could not be
7 here today, nor Comm. Ramos, who had a
8 last-minute medical emergency in his family. So,
9 we will proceed with the meeting, however, to
10 cover reports and items not requiring a vote
11 today.
12 Welcome, everybody who has been able to
13 attend. We have been short of a few people,
14 making it through the summer with a skeleton
15 crew, so I want to thank you all for pitching in
16 and doing whatever extra work has been required
17 of you during this time.
18 I would ask for us to skip Item B, which
19 requires an adoption of the minutes of the last
20 meeting, which would have been in May, and move
21 to the Financial Report, in case there are any
22 questions about that that we might pass on to
23 Ms. Blackwell.
4
1 MS. MALONE: I should inform the
2 Commission that Ms. Shumura Trammell has been
3 serving kind of in the place of Ms. Blackwell,
4 who resigned from the agency effective July 8th,
5 and we have -- are posting for that position as
6 it is currently, with the hopes of filling it as
7 soon as possible.
8 (Mr. Hite arrived.)
9 MS. MALONE: We are -- to that end,
10 we are in audit with the State Board of Accounts,
11 and that's finishing up, and hopefully the
12 results of that will be done by the end of -- end
13 of August, and we probably, perhaps depending
14 upon that audit, will be reporting maybe in
15 Executive Session at that time.
16 Mr. Hite?
17 MR. HITE: Madam Chair, members of
18 the Commission, I apologize.
19 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Good
20 afternoon, sir. We're glad that you're here.
21 MR. HITE: Thank you.
22 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Your Deputy
23 Director is in the middle of --
5
1 MR. HITE: She's doing an outstanding
2 job, isn't she?
3 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Always.
4 MR. HITE: I insist she carry on.
5 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: All right.
6 Are there any questions regarding the
7 Financial Report?
8 MS. MALONE: As you can see, the
9 current balance is here before you. The first
10 page includes not only the Commission, of which
11 you have responsibility, but the other cultural
12 commissions, of which we have administrative
13 oversight. That includes the Indiana Commission
14 on Women, the Indiana Social Status of Black
15 Males, the Martin Luther King Commission, and the
16 Native-American Commission, as well as the Latino
17 Commission.
18 We continue to do workshops throughout the
19 state for attorneys that are doing CLE, and we
20 are moving forward with providing resources to a
21 number of our partners throughout the state, and
22 I'll probably let Mr. Hite further elaborate on
23 that. I think you can see that everything -- if
6
1 you have any questions, I -- hopefully I can
2 answer them, and I need to --
3 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Are there any
4 questions about the finances?
5 (No response.)
6 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Okay.
7 Thanks.
8 Hearing none, let us move then to Item C
9 on your agenda today, which is the Executive
10 Director's Report.
11 Good afternoon again.
12 MR. HITE: Good afternoon, Madam
13 Chair, once again. I just want to make sure that
14 I note -- not in an attempt to be redundant, but
15 as always, thank you for your participation and
16 the Commission's participation in our events, and
17 for those times we've reached out for wise
18 counsel, thank you for your input, direction, and
19 sometimes correction.
20 As it stands, there are new challenges of
21 which you've heard so far in the report, and
22 again, I'm trying not to be redundant, as much of
23 what I have to report on, I think my Deputy
7
1 Director did an outstanding job of covering many
2 of the events, and part of the places we've gone
3 and things we've done.
4 I think one of the things we want to talk
5 about real quickly is the role of the community
6 in terms of the CR -- ICRC in marketing and event
7 calendars as part of the Commission. What we try
8 to do is market ourselves internally and
9 externally, to be more effective and efficient.
10 We're looking at -- right now, for
11 example, we're looking at staffing issues, as you
12 heard, building a team and marketing and what we
13 have as the ICRC, and I think our tangibles, the
14 more people we find, I think, in coming on board
15 to do this type of work. So, we're looking for
16 an extended work force. We're looking for people
17 here who are about the service and about the
18 business of serving the community.
19 And as such, we're expanding boundaries, I
20 think, a bit beyond just what we normally do, as
21 you know, the core mission of ICRC since 1961,
22 but also looking at current events and being
23 relevant to the mission as we know it. In that,
8
1 we are attending the race reconciliation meetings
2 that have been taken place for the last 15 years,
3 the Urban League at the first of the month,
4 providing an exchange of great ideas, and
5 information's coming out of that.
6 And we're seeing ourselves in that role in
7 terms of identifying challenges before they
8 become crisis and the whole issue of civil
9 disobedience and civil disturbance is something
10 that's been coming upon our radar as well when we
11 go to those meetings.
12 We talked about the issue in terms of the
13 various communities and diversity, and we talked
14 about the Burmese community, for example, and
15 Barbara covered some of this already, but also we
16 see issues and challenges in the community around
17 discrimination and unfair practices. We'll be
18 responding to the scenes, engaging the community
19 and finding out why -- the root causes in those
20 neighborhoods.
21 Most recently we had an issue of an
22 incident that happened over the weekend in
23 Fishers relative to information of the Klu Klux
9
1 Klan, being someone in the neighborhood passing
2 out literature that we responded to, both the law
3 enforcement -- and reached out to them and the
4 local community and clergy in the community;
5 i.e., Pastor Jeffrey Johnson, who has the largest
6 African-American church in that community.
7 Along with that, we also have had some
8 opportunity to bring people on board, even -- in
9 terms of the past, and we're going to continue to
10 do that, making sure we reach out and provide
11 information to the community for that purpose.
12 But as it was just stated, we are having some
13 discussions with people about volunteering within
14 ICRC, and working with our local human rights
15 partners.
16 We had a great conference in Evansville
17 June 21st through 25th, and out of that
18 conference came -- and resolute work of all of us
19 just being present, administrative presence, in
20 each of these communities. We received an award
21 from the consortium, and yours truly, I think I
22 must have been -- because I wasn't at the
23 meeting, I got elected -- appointed to
10
1 Vice-President of the consortium. So, I'm
2 honored to be able to serve in that capacity, but
3 it says that we at least turned the corner in
4 terms of communication, I think.
5 We also attended the conference in
6 Washington, D.C. around the human rights agencies
7 under the NIFA [sic], the National Fair Housing
8 Association, and got a chance to hear how the
9 other half sees what we do. So, the PHIP's and
10 the PHAP's were able to get together. We had a
11 very interesting time about how they view the
12 world in terms of our ability to reach out and
13 adjudicate cases versus their advocacy for the
14 community and the members.
15 So, we were able to strike an accord with
16 them, and I think we'll be attending more of
17 their conferences, and hopefully we'll be able to
18 use some of the talent together, jointly, during
19 the Fair Housing Month in April.
20 Along with that, we were able to attend
21 the retirement luncheon for one of our stalwarts
22 in our business, in EEOC, the retirement luncheon
23 for Webster Smith on June 29th. As you know,
11
1 Webster is well known in the community, well
2 known in the EEOC world, and it was really good
3 to be a part of that, but also to have him
4 finally be recognized and given his just due when
5 we presented him with an award for his service.
6 We -- the Deputy Director and I attended
7 the Mayor's annual IBE Breakfast at the
8 Convention Center. We also attended the
9 Governor's Reception. We were part of his
10 planning committee, and honored several worthy
11 people in the community at that event.
12 We also were part of the community -- I'm
13 sorry -- the IBE Summer Celebration Education
14 Conference. We helped sponsor that, and we
15 participated on several panels, sharing
16 information with the community around education,
17 and particularly around suspensions and
18 expulsions of young people in school, finding
19 alternatives to that, and being proactive in
20 educating them just as to civil rights around
21 education, which, as you know, is part of our
22 core mission as well.
23 We also had a chance to participate in the
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1 luncheon, and I had an opportunity to spend some
2 time in Washington with the Attorney General,
3 several chiefs around the country, prosecutors,
4 mental health types, to talk about what's
5 happening in our nation's capital around the
6 issue of violence, police and community
7 engagement, but also civil disobedience and civil
8 disturbance and what should be the role of the
9 civil rights agencies, what should be the role of
10 law enforcement, and also how we begin to prepare
11 to develop a relationship with our federal
12 partners around those laws that may not exist in
13 the various states around civil rights, and how
14 we begin to use those agencies to assist us in
15 investigating those types of crimes.
16 Staffing, as you heard -- well, let's go
17 back. I want to honor our staff for doing an
18 outstanding job of making sure that we were on
19 time in our cases, were superb in terms of
20 reporting out, making sure our partners were
21 pleased from HUD, and our Repace Team has done an
22 outstanding job, along with our support staff
23 who's with us.
13
1 We still have some contractual
2 obligations, and we are ahead of the curve in
3 terms of where we thought we would be, and
4 considering the fact we've had a tremendous
5 amount of shifting of staff, which is not
6 uncommon in a year of this type.
7 And we're switching over the staff, and
8 we're going to talk about -- in fact, we're that
9 close to appointing an ALJ, which we will be
10 sending a name to you very, very soon. And also,
11 we're looking at filling some other positions, as
12 you see, that are temporary positions to be
13 filled, but one person who's still working on
14 FTE's.
15 And the other -- there are several people
16 moving on to other parts of government, some
17 moving into the private sector, and also, we're
18 looking to -- we look forward to hiring some new
19 energetic folk into several positions, as I
20 indicated before.
21 The Cultural Commissions are going well.
22 The Social Status of Black Males have had several
23 events. They have some coming up in the next few
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1 weeks, around the issue of the Barbershop
2 Initiative and back to school. We're
3 participating in also similar activities in the
4 city as well. The Women's Commission, the
5 Native-American Commission, the Latino
6 Commissions are all serving as well and have
7 events planned.
8 The Civil Rights Night tonight at Victory
9 Field, barring any rain, we'll be watching a game
10 and looking forward to those who want to attend.
11 We also are looking forward to
12 rescheduling our HUD Region V Fair Housing
13 Conference. There were -- because of scheduling
14 and recent events in the country, there were some
15 of our partners that weren't able to be able
16 to -- won't be able to attend, and we're
17 rescheduling that for the end of the year, or if
18 not, the first of next year.
19 The communications plan in terms of
20 budgeting has been approved by our Office of
21 Management and Budget for Fiscal Year '17, and
22 we're also expanding our outreach and marketing
23 to -- through Archer and through various sources,
15
1 in Recorder -- in Recorder and Minority Business
2 Magazine, continuing our branding through Radio
3 One, reaching out to various television networks
4 to do Sunday morning shows, La Voz, our Latino
5 news outlet, and the Indiana News. 1310 has been
6 outstanding.
7 We're sad to report that one of our
8 stalwarts in our community, Pastor Mike Jones,
9 has gone on. We planned to be on this week with
10 Mike, but we're going to continue his legacy and
11 the hard work he involved himself with in terms
12 of making sure we have a good product coming out
13 of the Civil Rights Commission.
14 There have been several meetings required
15 of us relative to interviews. We've been very
16 careful in how we craft that right now, given the
17 fact that we have to be clear on what the law
18 allows us to do in terms of expectations versus
19 realities in terms of the law. We're working
20 through some of those issues and challenges.
21 We're also making sure that our attorneys
22 and our people who are in our office are keeping
23 abreast of the current trends, making sure
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1 they're getting their CLE's and CEU's and they're
2 going to conferences and being aware of what's
3 happening in the country. We have several people
4 going -- have gone and will continue to go to
5 conferences to bring back information to share
6 with the rest of us.
7 But also how our office has been asked to
8 do a lot more in terms of education, not just the
9 punitive side, so to speak, or the litigation
10 side of things, but they've been asking us to
11 come out to do intervention and education and
12 preventive activities, and I thank the team for
13 doing a lot of that and for graciously being
14 creative in how we go about sharing information
15 about the ICRC, and then constantly branding and
16 rebranding in some cases, and introducing
17 ourselves to the community at large.
18 We're looking at expanding our -- well,
19 they may not be here to talk about it -- the
20 software. We've talked to partners around the
21 state. One of the challenges we have is not
22 being able to actually obtain data on issues that
23 occur, such as discrimination practices and
17
1 issues that come about.
2 We're trying to develop a centralized
3 prerogatory of work with the State Police around
4 that issue. We are also developing contracts or
5 looking at vendors for developing the software we
6 need to make sure we have accurate reporting to
7 you and cross-referencing data in a timely
8 fashion.
9 So, we're looking -- we're very excited
10 about that. We're very close to selecting, if
11 not already selected, a vendor who will be
12 providing services around data, so there'll be a
13 lot more information hopefully from around the
14 state we'll be able to share.
15 There are cases pending on the federal
16 level. Can't talk about them, but in certain --
17 in the southern portion of the state, there are
18 about five hate crime cases that are pending, and
19 some other cases in other parts of the state that
20 we're looking at very carefully.
21 And I think that's about it. We just --
22 social media is still part of what we do in terms
23 of reaching out to young people. When we hear
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1 about civil unrest and marches and sort of --
2 many of that -- much of that information is
3 shared through the social media outlets, and
4 we're staying abreast of that through our intake
5 sources. We're monitoring where our cases are
6 coming from and trying to figure out what's the
7 best medium, what conduit should we use to market
8 our brand that much better.
9 Any questions? Yes, sir.
10 COMM. HULL: I wondered -- and maybe
11 I wasn't listening carefully enough. With
12 respect to the Web site, I know, if I'm correct,
13 that we don't seem to have the transcripts posted
14 on the Web site. Will we be continuing to do
15 that, or have we stopped doing that?
16 MR. HITE: That's a very good
17 question. I'm not sure if that's been customary,
18 if that's the procedure in the past. Have we
19 done that in the past? I'm not really sure.
20 MS. MALONE: It is, yes.
21 MR. HITE: Okay. If that would be
22 the answer, I think that we will do it, yes. We
23 haven't had an update for a while on our Web site
19
1 for a while, and at this stage we're moving to a
2 new software company and a person to actually
3 help bring on and do a lot of that work for us.
4 So, thank you for your attention. I wasn't sure
5 if that's what we've always done, but I'm in
6 favor of sharing information as much as we can.
7 Now, you have to help me as to when we --
8 there are oftentimes questions asked about cases,
9 and we need some guidance on that as to what's
10 the -- what's the information -- considering the
11 expectation, because many of the case we have are
12 very sensitive in nature, and we often get
13 freedom of information requests for a lot of that
14 information.
15 What say you in terms of how much
16 information should we put on the Web site
17 relative to cases, and what's been your pleasure
18 in regards to that? Any thoughts?
19 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: It occurs to
20 me that your trip to Washington, D.C., in part,
21 answers my concern that in our efforts here in
22 the city and the region and in the state, in
23 response to and providing leadership, perhaps, on
20
1 issues of race relations and any conflict or
2 civil unrest that might proceed from that, that
3 your being able to put the discussion of those
4 issues within a national context could not be
5 more important.
6 I think that the general public now
7 receives so much more information regarding those
8 issues from both television and social media that
9 it's important that we not be so inbred with
10 regards to our work here at the Commission on
11 those issues.
12 So, that's a long way of my saying to you,
13 I hope that you will continue to make those
14 contacts, continue any conversations, casual and
15 otherwise, that you might have with the Attorney
16 General and others whose perspective can
17 enlighten and expand your view of how you conduct
18 the business of the state here regarding civil
19 rights.
20 MR. HITE: Well, thank you for that,
21 and I'm honored and humbled to hear you say that,
22 I really am, and we need your prayer and support,
23 because I think we are charting some difficult
21
1 waters, and we have to be able to convince people
2 that this is truly what civil rights is
3 ultimately all about.
4 I understand the four corners of the
5 statute and what it does, but sometimes even in
6 my own space, in my office, I have to remind
7 people that we are beyond what we see, and it's
8 about the people's business. But you're right
9 that we have to be at the forefront of the
10 movement and be a vanguard.
11 And also, I think it's important to be at
12 the table. As one of our legislative leaders
13 once said, "If you're not at the table, you're on
14 the menu," so I think we don't want to be on the
15 menu. We want to show an example. We have a
16 relationship with people, understand what they
17 protest.
18 They are the young people who started
19 right outside our very steps here, three weeks
20 ago, and marched to the capitol -- I mean marched
21 to the center of town in terms of their disdain
22 and concern about fair rights and equal rights.
23 But we knew a lot of those young people in the
22
1 group. We knew the organizers, and they reached
2 out to several of us who have reached out to them
3 in the past couple of meetings and asked
4 permission to do certain things, which I thought
5 was really very unique. Not that they had to,
6 but they showed -- paid homage to us to let us
7 know they wanted to do it in decency and order.
8 And we had a talk with them about
9 understanding civil disobedience and civil
10 disorder. They have to understand what that
11 looks like and how to separate the wheat from the
12 chaff, that when you're having people who have an
13 agenda who's impacting your overall mission so
14 that -- it gets not understood.
15 So, those are the kinds of discussions,
16 going to your point, I'd like to continue to
17 have, with your permission. Even though the
18 state statute may not allow us to always be able
19 to have them with those parameters, but I think
20 it's important to the people that have been
21 enacting laws across the state in several
22 counties, that they let us know that this is very
23 important, to the point we just had a law
23
1 enacted, a statute enacted in West Lafayette
2 relative to LGBT community issues. There have
3 been some other additional added statutes in
4 other parts of the state that we have to look at
5 when we talk to our HR partners.
6 So, yes, it's a very, very unique time in
7 our history, but at the same time, it's very
8 exciting. I'm excited about the data, and being
9 able to talk with legislators about change with
10 real empirical data instead of just anecdotal
11 stories.
12 And I'm also looking at how we can be able
13 to identify and cris -- people in crisis in
14 neighborhoods who are suffering violence
15 throughout the state at a time when the rest of
16 the nation has not necessarily found an answer.
17 I think we have an opportunity to do just that.
18 We were very happy to have had some personal time
19 in Washington to talk about many of the
20 initiatives that we started here in Indiana.
21 And having conversations with some of my
22 colleagues, some of which, like Chief David
23 Brown, who was here last year during our national
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1 conference we held here, Law Enforcement and
2 Prosecutors, he's the Chief of Dallas. He was
3 here last year. He had to leave. The Chief of
4 Baton Rouge, he had to leave. So, I'm saying
5 these are people who are part the group of making
6 change, but now they're in the midst of change
7 themselves, so they need our assistance as well.
8 Thank you.
9 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Thank you
10 very much.
11 Any questions of our Director?
12 (No response.)
13 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Thank you,
14 Mr. Hite.
15 MR. HITE: Thank you.
16 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: In that we
17 cannot consider a vote on the decision regarding
18 Reginald Baker versus Roman Marblene, we will go
19 to the report -- I'm looking for one that won't
20 require a vote. The Assignment of New Appeals,
21 so that's Item F on the agenda.
22 There being three of us here, I'd like to
23 have Comm. Edwards to review Dana Alfreds versus
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1 Jason D. Burks and Shalin Burks. And Comm. Hull,
2 if you would please review Jeffrey Bryant versus
3 United Hospital Services. The last two seem to
4 be as one, almost, and I'll review that.
5 MS. MALONE: For the last two --
6 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Yes.
7 MS. MALONE: -- of Item F 1?
8 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Yes.
9 MS. MALONE: Rashan Jones?
10 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Rashan Jones
11 versus Indiana Marion County Building Authority
12 and Terrence Rozzell versus Indiana Marion County
13 Building Authority.
14 If you will take note on your agenda of
15 the rest of the items to be considered, and if
16 those can then be put on next month's agenda,
17 please, we will look forward to considering them
18 at that time.
19 And there being no one here from the
20 public to comment at this time, I would call
21 attention to your Announcements, L, and
22 August 26th being the date of our next meeting,
23 try your best to be here. In the meantime, I am
26
1 available and the Commissioners are available
2 should you need to reach us for any reason.
3 And before we leave, I want to ask
4 Mr. Hite how his pitching arm feels.
5 (Laughter.)
6 MR. HITE: Well, Madam Chair, I can
7 tell you that I've been throwing for a long time
8 now. I've been told that I'm going to retire the
9 closer today. I'm going to have a young pitching
10 arm out there. I've got a relief pitcher coming
11 in for me this afternoon, a young person with a
12 young arm, because I've seen the videos on
13 YouTube and I've seen people from all walks of
14 life who can't seem to get the pitch over the
15 mound.
16 So, they've relieved me from that duty
17 today and said they've got a young person who is
18 dying and eager to prove that they can get the
19 ball across the mound, so we have a young person
20 who we want to honor, and they're going to
21 surprise him when he gets there today. He'll get
22 a chance to do something that will hopefully be
23 as inspiring for them as it is for us to watch,
27
1 watch the young person throw the ball.
2 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Great.
3 With that announcement --
4 MR. HITE: We're there in spirit.
5 So, I will not make the YouTube follies this time
6 around.
7 COMM. EDWARDS: Chicken.
8 (Laughter.)
9 MR. HITE: I represent that
10 statement.
11 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Yes.
12 MS. MALONE: And I'd just like to
13 somewhat add to the -- what we are doing at the
14 agency is that we're -- we basically have
15 fulfilled the contract, the EEOC contract as
16 well, and we're working cases for the next fiscal
17 year. So, although those aren't due until
18 September, we have completed the obligations
19 related to that contract as well.
20 On August 12th, I'm conducting an
21 inservice training for our investigators and most
22 of -- and the attorney staff on what is a
23 difficult legal subject for us to kind of wrap
28
1 our heads around, and doing an analysis and
2 investigation and findings as they relate to
3 employment discrimination law. I'm doing a
4 seminar on basically similarly situated employees
5 in the workplace and that analysis.
6 There's been changes relative to that, and
7 important changes, legal changes, that have
8 occurred in the Seventh Circuit, and I came
9 across this in examining the notice of findings
10 that you may sign -- that I sign.
11 I noticed that there was some question,
12 and it's also a question that came up at our last
13 inservice training relative to that particular
14 issue, because it's -- you're trying to compare,
15 in comparing people to people, supervisors to
16 supervisors, work situations, work rules to each
17 other. And so, hence, we need to, you know, kind
18 of tighten our belts a little bit and get a
19 better understanding and discussion.
20 If you care to attend, we could probably
21 ask you, you know, if you would like to listen
22 in, that we could do it by conference call and we
23 can provide -- I propose to have a handout for
29
1 that as well, so -- if that would assist you in
2 your deliberations relative the notice of
3 findings that you review on appeal.
4 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Great.
5 MS. MALONE: That's it.
6 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Thank you.
7 MR. HITE: One more point of order
8 for information sharing, Madam Chair. We're
9 looking to do something -- I've gotten some
10 requests of the community to understand what we
11 do at Civil Rights, but also people looking to
12 volunteer, and I just want to pick your brains
13 collectively around that idea of how we develop a
14 volunteer group of people who are kind of like
15 civil rights advocates. They can go out in the
16 community.
17 And a lot of the understanding that people
18 have about fairness is not really explained
19 properly. What we're looking to do is remain
20 proactive, before things get to the level that it
21 becomes disobedience. A civil right's one thing,
22 but it's another thing when people act out on
23 those things. As one of our pastors said at one
30
1 of the IBE meetings, he said he's angry and he's
2 frustrated, and he's very angry, very frustrated,
3 but the Good Word says to sin not.
4 So, the idea of giving people hope and the
5 idea of explaining to them what civil rights laws
6 are is something we want to do. So, we're
7 looking at a cadre of opportunities for people to
8 come on board with us, so any thoughts around the
9 idea of developing that volunteer core of folk
10 who want to be part of the civil rights movement
11 will be helpful to us.
12 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Well, I
13 certainly have an opinion about that, and an
14 idea, too. I've worked with volunteers in so
15 many activities and had to remind myself, as I
16 now question you, to make sure that you not
17 involve volunteers unless you have a solid plan
18 as to how they can be really helpful.
19 MR. HITE: I agree.
20 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: And also, as
21 I heard you make some reference, have a plan to
22 train them so that they can be really helpful.
23 Once they become a part of you, they represent
31
1 you to a certain extent. So, that -- with that
2 cautionary note, I say, the more the merry people
3 who are pushing the agenda of the Civil Rights
4 Commission, the better.
5 MR. HITE: I appreciate that, and I
6 think the young people were getting
7 misinformation, and they're looking for guidance,
8 they're looking for direction, and I'd like to be
9 able to offer that as an opportunity for them to
10 listen and hear and be part of a grander scheme
11 of things.
12 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Great.
13 Any other announcements?
14 (No response.)
15 CHAIRPERSON BLACKBURN: Hearing none,
16 the Indiana Civil Rights Commission meeting is
17 adjourned.
18 MS. MALONE: Thank you.
19 MR. HITE: Thank you.
20 - - -
Thereupon, the proceedings of
21 July 29, 2016 were concluded
at 1:44 o'clock p.m.
22 - - -
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32
1 CERTIFICATE
2 I, Lindy L. Meyer, Jr., the undersigned
3 Court Reporter and Notary Public residing in the
4 City of Shelbyville, Shelby County, Indiana, do
5 hereby certify that the foregoing is a true and
6 correct transcript of the proceedings taken by me
7 on Friday, July 29, 2016 in this matter and
8 transcribed by me.
9
10 _________________________
11 Lindy L. Meyer, Jr.,
12 Notary Public in and
13 for the State of Indiana.
14
15 My Commission expires October 27, 2016.
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