[T]he Vermont Human Rights Commission has appointed one of its administrative law examiners as its new executive director. Bor Yang will be the first person of color to serve as the commission’s executive director when she takes over the position Nov. 13.
Yang currently works for the commission investigating discrimination claims in housing, public accommodations and state employment. She will replace Karen Richards, who is retiring and has served as executive director since 2013.
After a summer in which several instances brought attention to racism in Vermont, Yang plans on focusing on addressing systemic racism and discrimination by offering more explicit bias training and holding forums across the state.
Youth of color attending a summer camp in Stowe were targets of racial slurs and state Rep. Kiah Morris resigned in September after racially motivated online harassment and threats.
Yang said addressing systemic racism is her top priority and said she hopes the commission can get more funding to work on education and outreach.
“The level of explicit bias that we’re seeing is very concerning and a lot of that has to do with the lack of diversity in the state but an agency like the HRC gets very little financial support to do that kind of work and the training that is necessary and the outreach that is necessary,” Yang said.
Formed in 1988, the commission has five staff members — the executive director, three administrative law examiners who investigate discrimination claims and an executive staff assistant/case manager.
In fiscal year 2017, the commission obtained $231,950 in monetary relief in discrimination cases. The commission also provides training and educational outreach, which reached 2,158 people in fiscal year 2017, 712 of whom received implicit bias training.
Yang said her experience as an investigator has helped her form a vision for the commission.
Before joining the HRC in 2015, Yang worked as a lawyer representing poor clients and victims of domestic violence. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Her experience as a refugee growing up in a diverse community in Minneapolis will help her in her new position, she said. She is also a person with a disability; she uses a cane to walk as she contracted polio when she and her family fled war-torn Laos. She arrived in the United States with her family in 1980.
“Obviously when you’re handling systemic racism and dealing with discrimination, it’s important to have lived experienced, and I think that’s an important part of who I am, and it’s an asset to my position,” she said.
At the commission, Yang investigated a racial discrimination case at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital. The commission found that the Vermont Department of Mental Health discriminated against an employee of the hospital who alleged that she was subjected to “repeated hostile, offensive and racist comments and actions by her co-workers and patients.”
She also investigated disability discrimination claims against the University of Vermont Medical Center. The commission found that the hospital had only “a surface-level understanding of deaf people and deaf culture.”
She said that as an investigator she found it was important to learn from instances which met the legal definition of discrimination and those which did not meet the legal definition but were environments in which an individual perceived bias.
“The law on discrimination is really hard to meet, to prove discrimination, but that shouldn’t necessarily stop agencies or places of public accommodation from doing better than what the law requires you to do,” she said.
Richards, the commission’s current executive director, said Yang was the right person for the job.
“She knows the agency, she knows how the agency operates, and she brings some diversity to the position which is very important going forward, particular in these times,” Richards said.
