"New Jersey Against Discrimination:
April 16, 1945-2005"
Comments of Director J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo,
Ceremony at Statehouse Annex, April 18, 2005
Trenton, NJ -- On April 16, 1945 , Governor Walter E. Edge signed a bill sponsored by Dr. James O. Hill, enacting the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and creating the Division Against Discrimination (now known as the Division on Civil Rights).
Dr. Hill, who served as State Assemblyman for Newark, drafted the law to prevent discrimination on account of race, creed, color, and national origin or ancestry, making the LAD the nation's very first state civil rights statute 60 years ago.
When the LAD was first enacted there was discussion about what department in State government would be assigned these new responsibilities.
Some felt that because the law pertained to employment it should be assigned to the Department of Labor.
Others thought it should be a law enforcement agency and be placed in the Office of Attorney General.
However, at the time, Governor Edge hoped that its disputes would be resolved through “education, persuasion, and conciliation,”thereby assigning the Division Against Discrimination's duties to the Department of Education.
In 1963 the agency was moved to the Department of Law and Public Safety, where it has remained as the only statewide anti-discrimination enforcement, education, and prevention law enforcement agency in the LAD's 60 year history.
In 60 years following the enactment of the LAD, the law was amended hundreds of times, adding protections based on a variety of new categories, such as age, sex, disability and sexual orientation.
The law was expanded to cover not just employment discrimination, but unlawful discrimination in housing, places of public accommodations, and the provision of services and terms and conditions of contracts.
In 1949 Governor Alfred Driscoll signed into law a bill to extend the LAD to include not just employment, but also places of public accommodation, and specifically included all schools in New Jersey that came under the jurisdiction of the State Board of Education.
Two years later the law was expanded to prohibit employment discrimination because of liability for service in the armed forces.
In 1954 the LAD was further amended to include unlawful discrimination in public housing, and then several years later expanded the housing discrimination provision of the law, to also include discrimination in housing guaranteed by mortgages financed by federal agencies.
The 1960's were a busy time for the LAD, as on June 21, 1960 the Division Against Discrimination became the Division "on" Civil Rights, and less than a year later amendments extended coverage of the LAD to nearly all types of rental housing.
Discrimination in employment on the basis of age was added to the LAD on May 7, 1962, after Governor Richard J. Hughes signed a new bill into law.
On May 21, 1963 the DCR was moved from the Department of Education into the Department of Law & Public Safety, where it has remained since.
In the 1970's the state's anti-discrimination law was amended further, to add sex, marital status, and disabilities as new protected categories under the LAD
In more recent years, the law was amended in a variety of ways. In 1992 New Jersey became one of a handful of states to protect individuals based on sexual orientation and in 1996 based on genetic information.
In 1999 the law granted to persons using guide dogs the right-of-way over vehicles at designated intersections.
In 2001 the LAD's statutory penalties were raised by the Legislature, and the following year made the State one of the few in the nation to protect persons from unlawful discrimination in housing based on their lawful source of income or rental subsidy, including Section 8.
The housing provisions of the law were amended in 2003 to strengthen the LAD's procedures and substantive protections.
In 2004 the Legislature passed the historic Domestic Partnership Act, prohibiting discrimination based on domestic partnership status.
Could the Legislature in 1945 have imagined where the LAD would be today? Could Assembly James O. Hill have thought how broad its protections would become 60 years later?
Could Governor Walter Edge in 1945 have imagined the LAD would eventually protect people based on sexual orientation, disability, age, or domestic partnership status?
Perhaps so.
It is quite evident that our State’s leaders 60 years ago were progressive in many ways.
They took a very bold step in 1945, a step that unanimously joined together all members of the NJ Legislature to pass the historic Law Against Discrimination.
My bet is, in 1945 they knew exactly what they were doing, and for that reason decided to hold New Jersey up as the model.
In that, not much has changed 60 years later. Many of our leaders continue to recognize the great promise of the LAD--that equal opportunity is all we can ask for, and that is all the LAD does.
It provides to all of our neighbors in this State the equal opportunity to work, to play, to travel, and to engage in commerce.
I think the next 60 years will continue in the direction of that great legacy.
Therefore, as we look at the birthday of the LAD -- April 16, 1945 -- let us remember the many promises of the law, and the many ways it has progressed to protect New Jersey 's residents.
Join me and my civil rights colleagues and friends, in taking a step back and thinking what New Jersey would be like if our Legislature and Governor did not enact the LAD.
Think of how different it would have been to rent an apartment, enter a store, join a pool club, or try to communicate with judges as you tried to seek justice at the courthouse.
Imagine trying to access public services that were closed to people based simply on their race, their religion, their national origin, or their sex.
Imagine what NJ would be like if the LAD did not reach out to protect the millions of people with disabilities in this great state.
Imagine if our residents did not have a state Division on Civil Rights to investigate charges of discrimination, or the Division of Law attorneys to prosecute these charges, or the Office of Administrative Law and the NJ Judiciary to hear these disputes.
Just Imagine.
Thankfully, our State has often been at the forefront of history and had lead the charge to protect our neighbors, our friends, or children.
Today’s New Jersey is no different. As forces sometimes try to hurt civil rights enforcement efforts, and try to find ways to minimize what civil rights mean, we need to
imagine -- imagine how different the State would be if the NJ Law Against Discrimination were not strong, vibrant, and rich.
As we look towards tomorrow, to see how the LAD will be used, we need not look far.
Back in 2004 the Division on Civil Rights and Attorney General Peter C. Harvey embarked upon an effort to ensure that our LAD's disability provisions are being enforced and in ways that effect large numbers of New Jerseyans.
As a result, we announced a statewide initiative to ensure that our movie theaters were made accessible to persons with hearing loss, nearly 720,000 in New Jersey alone, and 28 million nationwide.
Due to our efforts 4 large theater chains agreed to install captioning equipment throughout their theaters in New Jersey, making NJ the home to the most theaters with captioning equipment in the nation.
However, one company at that time would not install any captioning equipment, thereby preventing deaf and hard of hearing New Jerseyans from accessing their facilities and seeing their films.
That case has ended up in litigation in NJ State Superior Court.
In terms of that litigation, we continue to seek the strongest result possible
-- the ability of deaf, hard of hearing, blind and visually impaired New Jerseyans (more than 1 million strong) to go the movies any weekend and watch a first run movie.
So far, this is not the case with the company against which we have filed suit.
But we will push forward, as the founders of the LAD did in 1945.
By way of example, we were informed that that a nationwide advocacy group for the 28 million deaf and hard of hearing Americans just made a big announcement of support for movie theater initiative brought forth by Attorney General Peter C. Harvey and the Division on Civil Rights.
The AG Bell organization has officially withdrawn from the Coalition for Movie Captioning and supports our plans to make NJ's multiplex movie theaters more accessible to persons with hearing loss.
According to Dr. Todd Houston, Executive Director and CEO of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, by letter dated April 12, 2005 :
AG Bell strongly believes in supporting plaintiffs and state attorneys general who bring lawsuits against movie theaters for not fulfilling their access obligations under disability rights laws.
AG Bell strongly ... supports the current efforts of the NJ Attorney General's Office.
Ag Bell believes these efforts significantly advance the prospects for captioning access by setting, for the first time, tangable legal precedent upon which to base future litigation and regulatory efforts.
Ag Bell further regrets -- and disagrees with -- the CMC's view in the New Jersey litigation that occasional open captioned showings by ascertain movie chain is sufficient.
AG Bell supports the New Jersey Attorney General's position that open captioning access must be available on a meaningful basis.
Due to this critically important initiative this agency embarked upon less than a year ago, we have been able to made dramatic changes in New Jersey, making NJ now the nation's leader in movie theaters with captioning technology for the 720,000 New Jerseyans with hearing loss, and many theaters now even have DVS, allowing for descriptive video to accompany movies, making them also accessible to our nearly 300,000 neighbors who are blind and visually impaired.
While Dr. Houston's words were about a pending lawsuit in which New Jersey is seeking to protect the rights of our residents, they resound among people that care about civil and human rights generally.
We continue to be a national leader in ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities, which I think is our greatest challenge of the coming decade of civil rights enforcement.
Our Division, in conjunction with Attorney General Peter C. Harvey and other sister state agencies, is working with New Jersey’s hospitals, to ensure that they continue to be made fully accessible to persons with hearing loss and with language barriers.
We are also working to make New Jersey ’s large malls accessible to persons with mobility challenges and to parents with strollers by having them install barrier-free, automatic-opening entrances.
And, in what I believe is our greatest challenge, we have been working aggressively to ensure that our voting sites are barrier-free to persons who use wheelchairs, walkers, and canes.
No New Jerseyan should be denied their constitutional right to vote simply because someone official has refused to use a polling site location that is wheelchair-accessible.
We must be vigilant in protecting our neighbors with disabilities, for they include persons of every race, every religion, every nationality, and every sexual orientation.
In the same way New Jersey 's government created the nation's very first state civil rights statute in the nation exactly 60 years ago on April 16, we continue to be on the cutting edge of enforcement of anti-discrimination efforts.
Kudos to all who make it happen. Kudos to those that started it all in 1945.
Kudos to today's leaders that remain vigilant on protecting our civil and human rights in New Jersey.
And Kudos to all those people, agencies, attorneys, companies, advocates, and partners that help us realize the promises of the Law Against Discrimination.
Keep up the great work and let's continue to make New Jersey the civil rights leader that it has been for decades. And Happy Birthday, LAD!
i Special thanks to the planning committee for the April 18, 2005 Gubernatorial and Legislative Ceremony:
Assistant Director Philip Freeman, Juanita Jenkins, Ana Limo-Magras, Waleska Lucas, and Lionel Johnson.
Special thanks to William Scheckel for the program and Carl Ruopp, Jr. for the special webiste announcements.
ii Portions of this early history taken from "Equal Opportunities: Newsletter of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights," April 1970.
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