discrimination Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Human Rights Commission Holds Town Hall On Employment Discrimination, Harassment

A town hall-style meeting at Bluefield State University March 22, 2023 will focus on issues of workplace discrimination.

A town hall-style meeting at Bluefield State University will focus on issues of workplace discrimination.

The meeting, hosted by the West Virginia Human Rights Commission and the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, will focus on employment discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

Students, staff, and community members are invited to attend at the Herbert Gallery/Student Center Wednesday, March 22 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

Human Rights Commission Investigator James Spenia said colleges and universities like Bluefield were chosen for the meetings to inform, as well as hear from, community members entering the workforce.

“With the changes in technology, including things like Zoom meetings, we’re seeing different methods for harassment,” Spenia said. “It’s important to get out and educate them and let them know that there are resources, and what they can do to help combat that.”

Two more town halls are planned for other schools around the state. A similar meeting was held at West Virginia State University in early March.

“It’s an outreach initiative to get out in communities, specifically in Appalachia, and just try to educate the public and see what’s going on, to kind of discuss current issues in employment discrimination and see what they’re encountering in their day to day lives as well,” Spenia said.

Spenia said the Human Rights Commission addresses issues of discrimination and harassment in their day-to-day operations, and handles allegations of discrimination in the workplace, as well as in housing and public accommodations.

“It’s always ongoing,” Spenia said.

House Approves Religious Freedom Restoration Act

A bill that looks at religious freedom was up for a final vote in the West Virginia House of Delegates Monday. House Bill 3042 is called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and is similar to a bill that failed in the West Virginia Legislature in 2016.

A bill that looks at religious freedom was up for a final vote in the West Virginia House of Delegates Monday.

House Bill 3042 is called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and is similar to a bill that failed in the West Virginia Legislature in 2016.

Supporters argue the state needs the law so residents can challenge government regulations that interfere with their religious beliefs.

Those in opposition say the proposal will be used to discriminate against LGBTQ people and other marginalized groups.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, attempted to amend the bill twice. One proposal would have required businesses to post signage in their windows saying what kind of people they would not serve. Pushkin’s amendments ultimately failed.

During full debate of the bill, Pushkin argued what he felt were the true intentions of the legislation.

“This is about whether or not somebody should be able to be kicked out of their apartment because they’re gay, somebody should be fired from their job because they’re gay, somebody’s refused service in somebody’s store simply because they’re gay,” Pushkin said. “If you believe that, go ahead and vote for it. I think you’re better than that. Vote against this garbage.”

Some delegates, such as Del. Todd Kirby, R-Raleigh, argued the intent of the bill is to protect individuals, such as school teachers, from having to speak in support of lifestyles they don’t agree with.

“Such things as promoting transgenderism, homosexuality, in our classrooms, in our grade school classrooms,” Kirby said. “And these policies are sold to the American public and to the labor unions, the teachers unions, as being open, which that may be the intention. But what is happening is these teachers and administrators rights are being violated. Their religious beliefs are being infringed upon, because they’re being forced and compelled to speak in a way that violates their religious beliefs.”

Other delegates in opposition argued the bill could cause medical discrimination if a doctor or pharmacist doesn’t agree with a patient’s lifestyle.

“Let’s say somebody, an unmarried woman, comes in for birth control. Can a pharmacist refuse to fulfill that prescription?” asked Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia. “What if a gay man comes in for an HIV pill? Can they refuse to fulfill that prescription? I think that’s what this is about. It’s about whether a doctor can refuse medical care.”

The bill’s lead sponsor, Del. Jonathan Pinson, R-Mason, told the body the law would not determine what is right and wrong but rather create a judicial process in state code for situations where religious freedom comes into question.

“We’re not determining something to be illegal,” Pinson said. “Rather, we’re creating a judicial test. We’re giving statutory instructions to the judiciary, that when a RFRA case where someone would allege that a law that we pass in this body or a local municipal ordinance or county ordinance is in violation of their religious conviction, that the judiciary is to use this to point us to a two question test: number one, is their compelling state interest? And number two, is the state acting in the least restrictive means possible?”

The House debated House Bill 3042 for more than an hour, and it passed 86 to 12.

It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

W.Va. Bill To Bar Hair Discrimination Advances In State Senate

A committee of West Virginia lawmakers agreed Monday evening to recommend a bill to the full Senate that would prohibit discrimination based on hair type.

Senate Bill 850, originating in the Judiciary Committee, would add protections for “hair textures and protective hairstyles historically associated with a particular race” to the West Virginia Human Rights Act. This section of state code already prohibits discrimination regardless of race, gender, age and other characteristics.

Protective hairstyles include braids, locks and twists, according to the bill, which also has been dubbed the “Crown Act.”

Similar legislation in the House of Delegates was referenced to the House Government Organization Committee in January but never considered.

Senators heard from Beckley resident Tarsha Bolt before voting on the bill. She talked to the committee about an incident earlier in the school year, when a basketball coach barred her teenage son from playing because of her son’s dreadlocks.

According to Bolt, her son missed three games because he wouldn’t change his hair.

“If you guys are familiar with dreadlocks, you would know that it’s just a natural way of maintaining the texture of his hair,” Bolt told lawmakers on Monday. “It’s not something you can just cut out or rip out.”

The discrimination occurred despite the fact, she added, that her son was allowed to play on the same school’s football team and participate in the JROTC program earlier that year, with the same dreadlocks.

“It was just not right. Why was he targeted?” Bolt asked. “Why were his dreadlocks targeted? He’s a good kid. He has good grades. He has the skills to make the team. Why should his hair have him benched? And why should he be bullied to strip himself of his identity?”

As the Beckley Register-Herald reported following the meeting, Wood County Sen. Mike Azinger, a Republican, was opposed to the bill. As of Tuesday he was the only members of the Senate Judiciary Committee not appearing on the bill as a co-sponsor.

Calling the proposal a “sticky situation,” Azinger asked the committee to consider replacing it with a study resolution instead.

The motion failed.

Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, said the bill was “appropriately authored” by the committee counsel.

“I think that as it relates back to the race aspect [of the West Virginia Human Rights Act], I think that it is proper,” Weld said.

Sen. Mark Maynard, R-Wayne, agreed with Azinger, saying he wanted to hear from the coach Bolt mentioned and sporting groups like the Southern States Athletic Conference.

Sen. Richard Lindsay, D-Kanawha, said the bill was about more than the Beckley incident.

“This is something that applies across the spectrum to all types of individuals,” Lindsay said.

In the House of Delegates, Del. Danielle Walker, D-Monongalia, was the lead sponsor behind the House version of the bill. She called the Senate’s action a success.

“Discrimination and hate have no home here, there or anywhere,” Walker said in an interview Tuesday morning. “It’s not just about a high school student and a coach. It is about a landlord and a tenant. It is about an employer and an employee. It’s about an employee trying to go up the chain, but who is stuck because of how their natural hair [is], and the texture of their natural hair.”

The Senate was scheduled to consider any potential amendments to the bill on Tuesday, Feb. 25, before voting on whether to pass the bill to the full House of Delegates for consideration on Wednesday.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.

'Beyond The Sunset' Review: Wayne Winker Reveals the Rebirth Of The Melungeon Ethnic Group

The Melungeon people of east Tennessee were isolated and discriminated against throughout much of their history. They began to be “othered” in the 1800s for being mixed-race Appalachians.

Melungeons are considered a tri-racial isolate, meaning they are a combination of traits from multiple ethnic backgrounds, thus, creating their own unique culture. Today we know the Melungeon are African, white European and Native American.

In the 1800s and into the mid-1900s, they claimed to be Portuguese or the descendents of various Mediterranean cultures to explain their dark skin, and to try to avoid discrimination.

In the 1960s, a group from Sneedville, Tennessee got together to stage an outdoor drama about the Melungeon to attract tourists to their small town. That was a turning point for the group.

In author Wayne Winkler’s new book, “Beyond the Sunset: The Melungeon Outdoor Drama,” he delves into the drama and the influence it had on the Melungeon people in general.

Winkler is himself a Melungeon, although that was not a word that was commonly used in his house growing up.

“When I was about 12 years old, I was at my grandmother’s house and read about the outdoor drama that was planned for Sneedville. It was about the Melungeons and I’d never heard that word before. I came to find out that my dad’s family shared that heritage,” he said.

If not for the staging of the outdoor drama, called “Walk Toward the Sunset,” Winkler said the Melungeons might have been assimilated out of existence. Until that period, Melungeon was an epithet and no one used it for themselves.

Wayne Winkler, author of Beyond the Sunset.

“I think one of the major impacts of the outdoor drama was to give people a sense of pride in their heritage, but it didn’t happen all at once,” he said. “It made it okay for Melungeons to talk about their ancestry. I think the outdoor drama, it kind of came and went, but it left a kind of a seed among our people.”

Winkler said he thinks of the Melungeon story as a parallel version of the story of Appalachia. Where once very few people claimed to be “Appalachian” in recent years many people wear it as a badge of honor.

“I like to think of us as sort of Appalachian concentrate. In the small story of the Melungeons, you can see the bigger story of Appalachia as a whole. It was around the same time (as the drama) that people in Appalachia began to take pride in their heritage. So yeah, I think there are a lot of parallels between this story and the story of Appalachia as a whole,” he said.

Heather Andolina, the president of the Melungeon Heritage Association.

Heather Andolina is the president of the Melungeon Heritage Association. She only learned in the last few years that she is Melungeon and now her family is working on a documentary about the discovery.

“Our grandmother, she was a light mocha color. She underwent discrimination and prejudice. She was always said she was Cherokee. But then we started doing a little more family research and got into the DNA. When we learned about the Melungeon people, we realized that’s where our grandmother’s from. And her mother and her father, and we’re like, oh wow, this is so fascinating. It’s our own story,” Andolina said.

Andolina said her family documentary, “Infamous Characters, Notorious Villains” should be out by the end of 2020.

This story is part of an occasional series of interviews with Appalachian authors.

Group Opposing Anti-Discrimination Ordinance Files Petition

An organization opposing a West Virginia city’s newly reinstated human rights commission ordinance has obtained enough signatures on a petition to place the issue back on the city council’s agenda.

News outlets report that Keep Fairmont Safe filed a petition with the needed 333 signatures Wednesday, after an earlier petition was rejected when only 1,675 of the needed 1,979 signatures could be verified.

Keep Fairmont Safe opposed the ordinance’s addition of sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. Fairmont City Manager Robin Gomez says it was implemented to make Fairmont more welcoming.

The Human Rights Commission Ordinance will go back on the Fairmont City Council agenda within the next 30 days. If the council stands by its decision, the issue will appear on a 2018 ballot.

LGBT Rights Discussed at Shepherd University

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights were the topic of a public forum Tuesday morning at Shepherd University. Speakers at the event said West Virginia has come far in accepting LGBT people but not far enough.

Dozens of community members, Shepherd faculty, students, and alumni attended the discussion Tuesday on LGBT rights.

The forum explored the struggle for equal rights and protection from discrimination in West Virginia and across the country. It specifically looked at challenges the LGBT community has faced since the June 2015 federal legalization of same-sex marriage.

Delegate Stephen Skinner, a Democrat from Jefferson County, is the only openly gay member of the state Legislature.

At the event, Skinner said in order for West Virginia to be a leader in LGBT rights the state needs to first acknowledge that there is an issue.

“People in West Virginia have to recognize that there is homophobia that leads to action that people are actually hurt because of the hate that gets promoted,” he said.

Skinner says passing a statewide non-discrimination law is one answer, but he says West Virginia has progressed significantly in the past ten years.