(This editorial by Gail Schechter also appeared on Skokie Patch, August 31, 2021, https://patch.com/illinois/skokie/walking-diversity-talk-suburbs-nodx)
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s maxim, “the limits of my language are the limits of my world,” could easily apply to politics. When the Trump administration’s press releases removed references to “climate change” as the cause of wildfires and floods, it presumed that if we don’t have a term for a phenomenon, it doesn’t exist.
The same logic extends in recent years to the disappearance or defanging of human relations commissions in Chicago’s northern suburbs.
Human relations commissions emerged during the civil rights movement as facilitators of racial integration. When some states and ultimately, in 1968, the federal government outlawed discrimination based on race, national origin, and religion in housing, these commissions were created to help enforce these laws, mediate conflicts, build community, promote diversity, serve as an internal watchdog of local government, and affirmatively advertise the community to underrepresented groups.
And many did just that, such as the Skokie Human Relations Commission, Illinois’ first, dating back to 1961 when the first Black family moved in. Winnetka’s human relations commission, now long defunct, paved the way for the largest open housing gathering in any suburb, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke before 10,000 on the Village Green in 1965 and ultimately helped the first Black homeowners move to Winnetka.
But over the last thirty years, these commissions, always creatures of city councils, have had their scope reduced to cheerleading and sponsoring diversity poster contests. Following Wittgenstein’s logic, could it mean that these commissions exist only where there are “problems” (code word for racial tensions) that, if acknowledged, could lower property values?
What does it mean if we restrict the role of commissions to sponsoring innocuous activities like Asian Heritage Month (Deerfield, Glencoe, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles, Skokie)? Or use the term “Community” Relations Commission because “human” seems risqué as a code word for race (Wilmette, back in the early ‘90s)? Failing this, what if we effectively get rid of these commissions by folding them into others (Evanston, Northbrook), or demoting them to an advisory group (Highland Park)? Of course, some suburbs have no such commission in any form (Glenview, Highwood, Kenilworth, Northfield, Park Ridge, Winnetka).
The language communities use to justify weakening or watering down their human relations commissions is vague to the point of laughable:
“The purpose of the restructuring is to streamline City operations to best serve the public and to emphasize the City’s commitment to community vibrancy through increased public engagement.” (Highland Park, 2018)
Northbrook’s brand new, consolidated Community Commission dispenses with one of the main functions of the superseded Community Relations Commission, which was to “receive, hear and investigate noncriminal complaints of tensions, practices of discrimination and acts of prejudice and intolerance against any person or group because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age or disability and seek to resolve such matters.” Instead, it amorphously folds together this commission with the Youth Commission to “provide advisory recommendations” that would “create a more inclusive Northbrook” through “more programming and education,” according to Northbrook President Kathryn Ciesla in her August 6th “fond farewell” memo to members of the Community Relations Commission.
The most dramatic demise of a human relations commission is Evanston’s. Once the only human relations commission in the northern suburbs with a paid staff and which sponsored undercover fair housing investigations, initiated lawsuits against discriminatory real estate companies, housing rights education including mandating that every landlord and Realtor provide homeseekers with Evanston’s fair housing ordinance, a CommUNITY picnic in the fall, and formal mediation services, it was “disappeared” in 2016 by former City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz and the City Council.
Bobkiewicz reasoned that if all the human relations commission does is, well, “improve human relations” (“The City of Evanston has a Human Relations Commission whose primary function is to improve the human relations within the City”), who needs it? A consolidated “Housing, Homelessness & Human Relations Commission” would “more effectively and efficiently utilize the City’s resources.” But "Human Relations" was dropped from what became the "Housing & Homelessness Commission," and this year, this body dissolved altogether. Gone is any kind of fair housing compliance, promotion and stewardship of diversity, or community-building function.
Human relations commissions are meant to cover much more than housing oversight or cultural bridge-building. Dust off the U.S. Department of Justice’s gold-standard roadmap, Guidelines for Effective Human Relations Commissions (1998), and city councils would find that these commissions can be very powerful forces for legal, racial, and social transformation.
Imagine each suburb adopting an ordinance for a human relations commission empowered to do the following, as quoted directly from the DOJ Guidelines:
It should prohibit discrimination in specific areas (i.e., employment, housing) and identify the groups that will be protected.
It should establish a policy of equal opportunity in the civic, economic, political, and social aspects of the community.
It should charge the commission to study and recommend to the local government programs and policies that enhance communication and understanding among all residents of the community.
It should charge the commission to develop and maintain programs that build positive relations among communities and enhance problem-solving skills among residents throughout the community.
It should promote policies and practices by all units of local government that support inclusiveness and civility among residents.
It should outline the specific authorities of the commission, including areas of enforcement, subpoena power, hiring, and acceptance of public and private grants and contributions.
It should define how each commissioner will be appointed, detail their authority and length of service, and outline the commission's jurisdiction and relationship with other governmental units and advisory bodies.
One would think that in the wake of pan-racial demonstrations in support for Black lives last year following George Floyd’s murder by white police officers, cities and suburbs would have included among their anti-racism pledges plans to create or beef up their human relations commissions.
In Chicago’s northern suburbs, only one community heeded the call: Wilmette.
It is no accident that most of the young leaders of the Black lives solidarity rally that I covered last year in Winnetka (“Systemic racism starts and ends with housing”) live in this suburb, and had the support of allied groups such as the League of Women Voters of Wilmette, Wilmette Cares, Healing Everyday Racism in Our Schools (HEROS), Community Partners for Affordable Housing, and congregations. Indeed, Wilmette, after more than six years of controversy, was finally going to get its first housing development affordable to low-income families, Cleland Place, so connecting racial equity to housing was already top-of-mind.
In the wake of the rallies, these groups advocated that the Village of Wilmette reinstate Housing and Human Relations Commissions. I joined the chorus and was glad to find receptivity in Village Manager Mike Braiman and some Wilmette Trustees. I shared with them the DOJ Guidelines. They held two public meetings in July 2020 (the July 30, 2020 packet includes the Village’s research on commissions in the area) at which dozens of residents expressed support for a body that would pave the way for a more racially and economically diverse community with a culture of openness to seal the deal.
In October 2020, the new Wilmette Human Relations Commission was formed (as was an invigorated Housing Commission), and this past June, launched a set of “Community Listening Sessions” intended, according to the Village’s Facebook page, to serve as an “opportunity for the community to get to know the commissioners and start a conversation about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Village of Wilmette.”
Time and commitment will determine if this new commission succeeds in making Wilmette truly open and diverse. But it is a start that every municipality needs to emulate.
To airbrush out of existence human relations commissions as a way of wishing away people of color and marginalized people is downright cruel. Conflict is inevitable, but friction in the form of hate crimes, housing discrimination, and racial profiling that too often accompanies demographic change can be eliminated when we put our collective minds and political bodies to the task.
