Hello Everyone,
Evelyn here,
with a message from my boss and Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum taken from an excerpt the “Generally Speaking.”, a weekly newsletter.
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Since its inception in 1992, the Attorney General’s Office of Civil Rights has an impressive history protecting the civil rights of Floridians. The Office is dedicated to preserving and promoting equality and justice, regardless of race, gender, physical ability or any other individual factor, and its reputation for coming to the aid of those who most need assistance is outstanding. Allison Bethel, the Office’s first Director, has been a true leader in the State of Florida. She complements her passion in civil rights with her activities in the community, formerly serving as the past chair of the Florida Bar’s Equal Opportunities in the Profession Section. She is a past president of the Virgil Hawkins Florida Chapter of the National Bar Association and has served as an officer and director of the local Black bar associations in West Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties. Of notable significance is Bethel’sservice to the attorneys of the State of Florida through the leadership she exemplifies on the Board of Governors for the Florida Bar where she has served since June 2006. Bethel’s noteworthy accomplishments extend to the courtroom, where one of her victories involved a Miami-Dade restaurant which was required to pay $15,000 in restitution for automatically charging a 15 percent surcharge to all Black patrons. After a Perry bar owner required Black patrons to sit in the back room, Bethel fought to have his liquor license revoked and own thousands of dollars in victim restitution. In 2003, shortly after this case, the Dr. Martin Davies Civil Rights Act was signed into law. The first case under this law, the most powerful civil rights legislation in more than a decade, involved a North Florida motel which segregated guests by race and told Black families not to use the swimming pool. The motel owner had to pay $40,000 to compensate the victims and is now prohibited from owning or operating a motel or any other form of public lodging in the United States. In 2004, the Office of Civil Rights handled its first employment case which involved a North Florida utility company where the hostile work environment included frequent racial slurs and a noose on display. The Office obtained permanent injunctive relief for the plaintiffs and nearly $400,000 in damages, fees and costs. In 2007, the Office began moving in a direction close to Bethel’s heart when it issued subpoenas to several South Florida apartment complexes allegedly discriminating against families with children. While investigating this case, the Office settled another housing discrimination case involving an independent living facility which was limiting disabled residents? access to common use areas. This case is one of the first to deal with disability accommodations in these types of facilities. The Office’s work is also significant outside the realm of litigation. Since 1994, the Office of Civil Rights has trained more than 3,500 law enforcement personnel from more than 270 jurisdictions and has developed educational programs for Florida students on how to recognize hate crimes, how these crimes affect Florida communities, and how the law protects victims. This past year, I was proud to report that hate crimes had fallen to the lowest level in eight years. Allison Bethel is a nationally recognized leader in civil rights particularly in the field of housing discrimination. I applaud her accomplishments and commend her for taking her talents to John Marshall Law School where she will be teaching on the finer points of housing discrimination law. She enters the next phase of her already distinguished career with my best wishes.
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Evelyn out
