Data obtained by Advance Indiana from the Indianapolis Office of Equal Opportunity show relatively few complaints of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity have been filed with the city agency charged with investigating discrimination complaints under the city's human rights ordinance over a recent six-year period. Opponents of adding LGBT protections to Indianapolis' anti-discrimination law argued claims based on sexual orientation would open the floodgates to frivolous complaints being filed against employers and local businesses when the law was enacted ten years ago, but the statistics portray a much different picture.
During the period of 2009-2014, there were 608 discrimination complaints of all types filed with the Office of Equal Opportunity. The overwhelming number of those complaints, 83%, were based on a claim of employment discrimination. Only 11% of the complaints alleged housing discrimination, while just 6% alleged discrimination in public accommodations. The average number of complaints based on sexual orientation averaged fewer than 10 per year, or 54 in total, which represented less than 9% of the total complaints received by the office. Gender identity complaints represented just over 2% of the total complaints filed, or just 15 over the six-year period.
Of all types of complaints filed with the agency, the agency found no reasonable cause to support a discrimination claim in 44% of the cases filed. The complainant voluntarily withdrew their complaint in about 10% of the cases, while about 25% of the complaints were administratively withdrawn. The agency conciliated agreements between the complainant and the party accused of discriminating in fewer than 20% of the cases filed with the office.
Here is a breakdown by complaint type in order during the 2009 to 2014 period. The vast majority of complaints were based on race, color or national origin. Note that some complaints allege more than one form of discrimination:
1. Race/Color/National Origin-324
2. Disability-112
3. Sex-111
3. Retaliation-111
5. Age-108
6. Sexual Orientation-54
7. Gender Identity-15
8. Religion-8
9. Veteran Status-6
7 comments:
A more than useless agency, in my view, and I would hope that someone with deeper pockets than a cupcake maker would file suit and easily overturn this ordinance. However, it is a useful corrective to the lying Tiny Tim of duh Star who constantly claims that there is no evidence at all that the ordinance has caused or created any problems. Watching Ballard wallow around City Market and threaten all sorts of problems for the baker was an early indication of his unfitness for electoral office-a judgement since confirmed by many bloggers, two of the best ones read by most sentient Marion County sorts.
Sounds like we ought to worry about reducing racial discrimination first. Sad that's still an issue today. But the data is what it is. Thank you for doing the real reporting Gary! Sure as heck won't find this at the Star. But you will find gleaming and shameless articles promoting newly elected politicians' local businesses, such as the recent article about CIty County Councilor elect Colleen Fanning's wine selling business.
I think there is an "argument" to be made in favour of the Office of Equal Opportunity because the office mediates against cases that could easily become very costly, and it collects valuable data.
Discrimination is a tough matter for administrators to deal with; having processes and offices like OEO helps manage and lessen the intensity of escalations and guide policy -for example escalations like what we are seeing at the U of Missouri could potentially have been dealt with had a defined escalation/grievance process existed at the ground level.
It's important to keep an eye out on these Offices as they will most likely play a more visible and potentially powerful role in future skirmishes. (Not that I am a fan of bureaucracy)
Discrimination is very easy to sense or suspect but hard to prove, but even so it exists and it seems like a good idea to make a good faith effort in dealing with it.
Nice post Gary.
Complaints #2 & #4 appear to be the same category?
Well, so long as Americans have free association rights there will be racial discrimination and for a number of very good reasons if you think about it. The suggestion that a 1964 "law" passed, narrowly, by the way, should set policy for everything was never its intent. The unwisdom of what was done then and following should be apparent to all who have ever examined the arguments made in 1964 and prior....mostly by Democrats. Worse, from the legal perspective, is that Brown v Board of Education was not good law made in a legislature but an imposition and mis use of raw judicial over reaching....using jiggered progressive "reasoning" from social science (most of whose research like all of the soft sciences, is junk) the costs of stupidities are always high.
Thanks for the correction, Pete. Sex was inadvertently listed twice. I misread "111" for "117" on my first pass.
Presented here is the cost of 'stupidities'. Final vote for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Senate 73-27; House of Representatives 289-126. The only thing 'narrow' about the vote were the minds of southern representatives who argued states rights. To deny the ruling on Brown v Board of Education is deny the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Those dealing with some psychological problem concerning equality often invent their own fake history.
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