RICHMOND, Virginia (WAVY) – The Virginia House of Representatives voted Monday night to permanently establish a new civil rights office in the Attorney General’s office.
Attorney General Mark Herring, who announced the establishment of the office last monthcalled it “a great moment in Virginia’s long and ongoing journey to fulfill its promise of equality for all”.
The invoice was sponsored by Herring and house majority leader Charniele Herring.
“Every Virginian has the right to live free from discrimination and free from the fear that he will be denied an opportunity or treated differently because he is what he looks, how he adores or whom he loves,” said AG Herring in a press release. “I founded the Civil Rights Office to improve and centralize our ongoing work to protect, defend, and expand the civil rights of Virginians, and to make sure Virginians know that as their attorney general, I will always stand up and fight for them when you encounter discrimination. By making this office an integral part of the OAG, we are showing the Virgins that we have turned the page of a past where attorneys general either ignored or actually opposed the civil rights of the people they were supposed to serve. “
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The new office has thirteen employees, including seven lawyers.
“The Virginians should be proud to know that the protection and expansion of civil rights will now be an integral part of the attorney general’s mission,” said Majority Leader Herring. “The creation of the Civil Rights Office by Attorney General Herring showed a real vision and commitment to justice, and with this new law we want that commitment to endure. We’ve come a long way from the days when Virginia’s attorney general went all the way to the Supreme Court to keep people like me out of our public schools or to tell us who we might or might not marry. The Civil Rights Office will be a powerful and now enduring force for our Commonwealth, and I am so proud to have helped make it happen. “
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