Disability-Related Issues Top Complaint List Race Fourth-Most Common Reason Cited In Filings With County Human Rights Panel

Fri., May 19, 2000

By Rob McDonald robm@spokesman.com

(From For the Record, May 23, 2000): Story wrong: A story in Friday’s editions about the Washignton State Human Rights Commission misidentified the organizer of the annual Walk Against Hate, which is Churches Against Racism.

The majority of complaints filed in Spokane County with the Washington State Human Rights Commission last year resulted from employment issues relating to disability and gender.

Age and race followed as most common reasons to file a complaint.

The commission released those findings Thursday night in a Spokane City Council briefing room.

Increased attention to the Americans With Disabilities Act and state laws based on disabilities account for the increase, said Michael Murphy, district manager for the commission. It’s the third straight year complaints based on disabilities have outpaced complaints based on race, Murphy said.

In 1999, 109 cases were filed from Spokane County. Of those, 28 were based on disabilities, 27 on gender, 16 based on age and 11 for race and retaliation issues. Seven complaints were filed on national origin and one was filed based on creed.

In all, 83 complaints were filed due to employment issues, 21 were filed for housing complaints and five were filed for public accommodation issues.

What’s happening in Spokane mirrors statewide trends, Murphy said.

Human rights leaders representing the Task Force of Race Relations, Spokane Human Rights Commission and Citizens Review Board recapped the past year in Spokane.

“We are trying to define our city and not let a small group of people who collect their mail in Hayden Lake define us,” said Raymond Reyes, associate academic vice president for diversity at Gonzaga University.

Reyes noted an anti-hate-groups march organized by the Task Force of Race Relations and other groups, including Churches Against Racism, that brought out 1,800 people.

The Rev. Lonnie Mitchell of Bethel AME Church, the church that founded Unity in the Community, said, “We hear a lot of negative things about hate mail and Aryan Nations. Spokane is doing some real positive things.”

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