EDUCATION DIVISION
A person entering the Education Division will not see more than one desk. The staffer behind the desk is Education Director, Terry Dolphin. Like the Compliance Division, traffic is usually moving out of his pleasant, compact office to destination points related to the goals and work of the agency. One destination point might be the Iowa Civil Rights Commission conference room on the third floor of the Liberty Building in downtown Des Moines. Another destination might be one of twenty-two cities in Iowa with a local human rights commission. Another category of destinations might include a school, an employer's staff meeting, a club or civic organization, a meeting of personnel managers, a church group or any gathering where the topic is civil rights. The points of arrival in that category all relate to a third goal of the Education Division. Our Education Director might be headed for the Statehouse, or Camp Sunnyside (for clients of the Easter Seal Society) or perhaps a training conference in St. Louis or Kansas City. These addresses are important to three other goals of the Education Division.
Terry Dolphin, Education Director
Terry is a graduate of the University of Iowa (1972) with a Bachelor's degree in psychology. He did legal research in civil fights for attorneys in Iowa City prior to graduation and thereafter became an investigator for the Waterloo Commission on Human Rights. He started with the state Commission in 1974 as Director of Pattern and Practice Investigations and has been Education Director since 1976.
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT - STATE COMMISSION
During fiscal years 1977 and 1978, Terry spent many hours in our third floor conference room. There he spent most of those hours conducting classroom training for the staff of the state commission. Of all the goals or program areas, training the staff of the state commission received the greatest amount of attention. FY-77 was an important year for training. We designed the agency's first formal training course including a detailed syllabus and various training materials. To supplement the course we compiled the commission's first formal training manual as well. The course has two major components: classroom training followed by on-the-job training (OJT). Terry conducted the classroom component and Mr. Angel Cardona (Civil Rights Specialist III), who supervised a team of investigators, took charge of OJT.
We taught the two-week classroom session in two parts. In the first part we began by orienting the new employees to the commission's structure and internal procedures as well as introducing them to the rest of the staff. The main thrust of Part One is to present the law, theory and dynamics of discrimination. Then in Part Two we required the new trainee to take less of a passive role in his or her training by applying the principles from Part One in training exercises designed to simulate the actual work. They began by writing investigative plans and finished by analyzing a case, drawing their own conclusions and writing the summary of the investigation.
The field training of OJT has the same general progression from passive to active involvement on the part of the trainee, although the setting is much different. Angel expected trainees to take responsibility for scheduling appointments and preparing the case. Trainees accompanied Angel to the respondent's place of business. At first they mostly observed Angel conducting the investigation. With later on-site visits to other respondents, however, the trainee took on more and more of the responsibility for directing the investigation.
In FY-77 we conducted eight training sessions. The number of sessions was due mainly to the addition of Volunteers in Service to America (V.I.S.T.A.). Over that period of time eleven V.I.S.T.A.'s joined our staff. Altogether 30 people attended training in FY-77. Besides our own investigators and Civil Rights Assistants, participants in the classes included a few people from other state agencies as well as professionals from the larger local commissions. (Eight of the twenty-two local commissions have at least one staff person.) Through the cooperation between the state and these local commissions we were able to provide training for local civil rights workers to supplement what they were receiving at home without making eight different trips to eight different locals.
In FY-78 we sponsored four training sessions. The number decreased from the previous year because of our gradually phasing out the V.I.S.T.A. Program. Although four volunteers did join our staff in FY-78, we needed training more as a result of normal turnover of paid staff. Altogether 20 people went through the training program in FY-78. During the latest year we added some material to the established course which we felt was an improvement either in terms of simulating and breaking down the job for trainees or in terms of updating information on the growing body of civil rights law. For example, we did a more in-depth analysis of absenteeism, performance and discipline, issues commonly encountered in employment cases. We introduced some elementary statistical concepts as tools for investigators and we added to our survey of court cases. FY-78 was a productive, although not as busy a year for training as the previous year.
We augmented the staff development effort at the commission during FY-77 through the establishment of an agency library. The library is still in its infancy, but already contains a good variety of periodicals, law books, regular book titles and a reference section. The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (U.S. Department of Labor) is just one example from our collection. This is a reference work which can provide the investigator or intake worker with a ready listing of hundreds of jobs in business and industry. The subject matter in our employment case files is as diverse as the number of jobs in business and industry. No one person can experience all of those jobs personally. So the D.O.T. provides that staffer with a description of the job, the skills needed to perform it, the time needed to learn it and the best preparation for it. The library offers other resources to help the civil rights professional do a better than average job and learn more from the total field of knowledge in civil rights.
In FY-1978 we added to our library selections. Through the help of a Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) grant awarded to the commission by the Central Iowa Regional Association of Local Governments (CIRALG), we were able to catalogue and cross-reference all of our periodicals and book titles that we received as of December 1, 1977. With the CETA money we were able to hire Mr. Ray Johnson and Ms. Barbara Hunter. Ray worked as a Civil Rights Assistant 11 and Barb worked as a clerk-typist III to help complete the task. Both Ray and Barb worked on the library project part-time, since they shared time between the Education and Affirmative Action Divisions.
TRAINING - LOCAL COMMISSIONS
Although for the sake of efficiency we prefer to train local commissioners and staff in our office, this is not always possible. So our Education Director traveled to three of the twenty-two local commissions to conduct training on their turf. One stop was Indianola, the other two were Sioux City and Cedar Falls. In the future we would like to see local training done more on a regional basis with several commissions at a time.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
Besides the third floor conference room or a local human rights commission for training, another purpose of the Education Division might take Terry to a school, church, business or civic gathering. The objective he has in mind is public education. There are other staff persons at the Civil Rights Commission who work at fulfilling that objective also. Mr. Thomas Mann, Jr., our Executive Director, attends a number of functions at which he has the opportunity to inform people of their rights and responsibilities pertaining to the Iowa Civil Rights Act. Ms. Shirley Steele and Mr. Ray Perry, both Assistant Attorney Generals, although not actually staff persons of the commission, are assigned to represent the commission at public hearings and court proceedings. They also make themselves available if possible en public education opportunities arise. Mr. Angel Cardona, Compliance Supervisor, and Mr. Michael Bailey, Compliance Director, lend a hand in these matters as well.
Code of Iowa, Chapter 601A.5 Powers and duties.
3) To investigate and study the existence, character, causes and extent of discrimination in public accommodations, employment, apprenticeship programs, on the-job training programs, vocational schools, and housing in this state and to attempt the elimination of such discrimination by education and conciliation.
There was a time prior to the passage of the Iowa Civil Rights Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the federal level when the only "power" victims of discrimination and proponents of civil rights had was education. In those days education began with a cadre of neighbors, whose anger had finally bubbled over the crucible of fear inside of them. A makeshift human relations council if you will. Led by a reverend or rabbi, they were headed for a local employer/landlord/business owner, whom they considered a bigot, to inform him of the injustice and immorality of his actions, to appeal to his sense of fair play, in short, to educate him. When 1964 and administrative law enforcement arrived, we neighbors rejected education as if it were a weapon of the weak, something we had outgrown. But ironically in the words of that very law it appears not only as a duty, but a power.
Code of Iowa, Chapter 601A.5 Powers and Duties.
6) To issue such publications and reports of investigations and research as in the judgment of the commission shall tend to promote good will among the various racial, religious, and ethnic groups of the state and which shall tend to minimize or eliminate discrimination ...
We at the Iowa Civil Rights Commission are rediscovering public education as a power for eliminating discrimination. The framework of administrative law enforcement within which education occurs now has engendered better reception of the message. And the influence of electronic media has facilitated a much broader impact of the message than word of mouth on which the reverend and his neighbors relied. Certain public education efforts in both FY-1977 and FY-1978 highlight these developments.
Use of the expose is one example. In the fall of 1976 a woman in Cedar Rapids named Martha Allen notified our office that Rental Directory, Inc., a clearinghouse and referral service for apartment availabilities, had been excluding blacks from certain units by the use of a racial code. In response to her call we undertook a study of rental services including Rental Directory in six different Iowa cities; Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Iowa City, Cedar Falls, Des Moines and Council Bluffs. We worked in concert with the local human rights commissions in these cities.
The services of the clearinghouse are free to the landlord who calls in his or her availabilities periodically. For ten dollars a prospective tenant (client) can purchase a list of availabilities. If these do not produce, results, the same ten dollars entitles the client to return for more fists for a period of a month. Ms. Allen claimed that if a landlord called in and in the process of listing his availabilities requested that the service screen out any 11 undesirables", the agency would honor his or her wishes and code their forms accordingly. The result was that blacks or other "undesirables" would receive a different list compared to that of whites.
We obtained information through a number of ways: interviews with present employees, interviews with past employees, records of the agency and telephone audits. In the telephone audit we would have people phone the agency and pose as a landlord wanting the referral service to screen one type of person or another.
Fortunately or unfortunately Ms. Allen went to various news media in Cedar Rapids with her allegations shortly after she had come to us. The Des Moines Register and Tribune, which has statewide circulation, printed her charges as did several local newspapers.
Radio stations carried the story also. All of our inquires into the operations of these rental services, except Rental Directory, we made after these initial news breaks. To the extent that the initial news breaks eliminated discrimination, they were fortunate. Unfortunately, if there were violators among the three other agencies we looked at, they had time to purge their operation of these illegal practices and any evidence of them. But some interesting results did emerge from Rental Directory.
When the landlords requested the services of the clearinghouse, they filled out a questionnaire. The purpose of this form was to give a complete description of the property, the rent and any conditions or restrictions. An employee of Rental Directory would go over the completed form with the landlord. If the owner wanted an illegal restriction, the employee would code it onto the form in various notations. "Nice-people" meant - no blacks. "Good people" stood for - no hippie-types. Usually the date of the encounter with the landlord was noted like so, 12/5/76. But if the date was fully written out as in, December 5, 1976, it meant - no blacks. The familiar smiling face or happy face symbol became a tool for discrimination. In some cities the happy face pasted to the landlord questionnaire was another sign for - no blacks. Altogether there were five types of restrictions: lifestyle (hippies), sex, race, marital status and source of income (Aid to Dependent Children, etc.).
Three of these could be illegal under the Iowa Civil Rights Act. We have no jurisdiction for marital status in housing nor for lifestyle. But of the three others, race is outright impermissible. Sex is impermissible unless the housing accommodation is run by a non-profit corporation or unless residents of both sexes must share a common bathroom facility on the same floor of the building. Source of income may appear to be permissible except that it can have the effect of discrimination against women, racial minorities, older people and handicapped persons. A larger portion of people from these groups are below poverty levels and are receiving some sort of public assistance.
We released our findings at the January, 1977, commission meeting. Representatives from print, radio and television news media were present. Their broad coverage of the story helped make it a better expose. Even with our limited resources we were able to get high visibility and high impact without the expense in time or money of publishing anything ourselves.
Had the rental study been pursued through our regular complaint procedures, we would have been required to keep the whole matter confidential. By approaching it as an expose, we were able to bring to light an important matter for public knowledge and still obtain compliance from the world-be respondent. So education can be used as a tool of enforcement.
Code of Iowa, Chapter 601A.5 Powers and Duties.
6) To issue such publications and reports of investigations and research as in the judgment of the commission shall tend to promote good will among the various racial, religious, and ethnic groups of the state and which shall tend to minimize or eliminate discrimination ...
In FY-77 we published four new folders in addition to maintaining our regular agency publications. Each of the new folders is on a different area of our jurisdiction: employment, housing, public accommodations and credit. They list typical examples of violations in each area, how to get in touch with our office and the steps in the administrative process. All the folders are bilingual (Spanish and English). Other publications the Education Division is responsible for are, of course, the one you are reading, the Annual Report, and our newsletter, The Challenger. This is an irregular periodical that contains internal news of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, as well as items of interest for anyone with a concern for civil rights for any reason, whether one be a member of the interested public or a potential respondent or victim of illegal discrimination.
Code of Iowa, Chapter 601 A. 5 Powers and Duties.
9) to cooperate, within the limits of any appropriations made for its operation, with other agencies or organizations, both public and private, whose purposes are consistent with those of this chapter, and in the planning and conducting of programs designed to eliminate racial, religious, cultural, and intergroup tensions.
This part of the law does encompass certain responsibilities of the Compliance Division which may overlap those of other enforcement agencies, such as the local human rights commissions and federal agencies (EEOC, HUD, etc.) In the context of the Education Division, however, it refers to any program or presentation to which the agency can contribute its experience and knowledge for the sake of training and/or education. Some of these programs have been in cooperation with federal enforcement agencies, with local commissions and with private organizations. We have already discussed the kinds of programs the Education Division has done with the local human rights commissions. There were no cooperative efforts with federal agencies in FY-77, but there were two in FY-78. The first was a training session for intake personnel in February. Mr. Dolphin coordinated the training session with other training directors in the four-state region (Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas) and we held the session in Omaha. We also helped in a similar effort for advanced investigators. That session was held in April at Des Moines. Aside from cooperative efforts with other government enforcement agencies, there were eighteen (18) program or speaking opportunities in FY-78.
Programs ranged from junior high school students to graduate students, both public and private organizations, including church-related ones, both labor and management-sponsored programs and fifteen minute slots to all day workshops. The oldest group of participants was at the Elder Hostel Program and the youngest was at a meeting of a grade school Brownie troop.
The largest single program conducted by the Education Division was the Iowa Civil Rights Leadership Conference. We held the conference at the State Conservation Education Center in Springbrook State Park (Guthrie Center, Iowa). The conference ran from October 9 through October 12 with participants staying over three nights. The forty attendees addressed themselves to five issues. Their goal was to create a plan of action that was solution-oriented. This plan was to be not so much a prescription for the larger society as a statement of what they personally could do to help solve these problems. The first issue was how to enlarge the base for effecting change by developing a sense of personal power as well as personal and group networks. The second one was to ensure equal employment opportunity through affirmative action efforts. Third was how to strengthen state and local civil rights enforcement agencies. The fourth issue was to break the present segregated housing patterns. The last issue is really a composite of three sub-goals: a) developing better police-community relations; b) combating inflation for the elderly, the working poor and those people on fixed income; and c) improving health services to rural and urban ethnic minorities. The conference broke into five small groups in order to construct a separate plan on each of the five issues.
What emerged after combining all five plans was a new organization: The New Majority. The New Majority is a statewide organization which will have local affiliates throughout Iowa. All protected classes are equally represented on the board of the organization. The New Majority is a way of combining personal and group resources into a unique network. The priorities of the Leadership Conference now become the priorities of the New Majority.
LEGISLATIVE WORK
Another activity of the Education Director in both FY-77 and 78 was being one of the legislative liaisons between the agency and the state legislature. The role of the legislative liaison is to be an alternate source of information within the department for state senators and representatives in regard to the Iowa Civil Rights Act. Of course, the Executive Director is the primary legislative liaison for the Civil Rights Commission, but the Director does delegate this duty to others on staff when the need arises. For the past two years the Director of Operations, the Compliance Director and the Education Director have also shared this responsibility. The liaison is available in Des Moines to provide information to state legislators and may also express the viewpoint of the Commission on any matter relevant to the business of civil rights in Iowa. (Refer to the Legislative Section of this report for information regarding revisions in the Iowa Civil Rights Act.)
In FY-77 and FY-78 the work of the Education Division has covered three main program areas: 1) training for the staff of the state commission; 2) training for local staff and commissioners; and 3) public education. The Education Division, the Compliance Division and the local human rights commission interfaced in a couple ways. The Education Division provided training for investigators and people who take complaints. The same training was available to staff at the local level, who can in turn help relieve the workload at the state level. The Division researched business practices and exposed violations for the sake of both public education and remedial actions. This is an alternate method of broad based enforcement. The Division also used public speaking opportunities, literature and the Iowa Civil Rights Leadership Conference as ways of reaching the public. The Leadership Conference hopefully was an investment with long-term returns. As a result, perhaps more people will organize for their civil rights in Iowa. The work of the Education Division is part of a total enforcement effort on the part of the agency as a whole.