The Maryland HOME Act: HB 231 Floor Vote is this week!
Call or email your Delegate NOW!

Maryland HOME Act: HB 231, sponsored by Del. Brooke Lierman, will ban housing discrimination based on source of income statewide. Last Thursday, the bill PASSED the House Environment and Transportation Committee in a bipartisan vote!

The bill is now headed to the HOUSE FLOOR!

PLEASE call or email your Delegate TODAY and ask him/her to
VOTE FOR a clean HOME Act and AGAINST any floor amendments!

Don't know your state Delegate?  Check with your address here


We anticipate and OPPOSE 3 floor amendments that would create LARGE loopholes in MD fair housing law:

Imposing a 20% cap on voucher holders.  This proposed amendment is contrary to the purpose of fair housing laws and means 80% discrimination against voucher holders.This amendment would also make enforcement very difficult: How does a rejected tenant know whether a landlord or property has hit a certain "cap"?  Urge your Delegate to vote AGAINST this amendment.

Exemption for small landlords who use Realtors or Property Managers.  The Maryland fair housing law already provides an exemption for property owners who own 2 or fewer units, as long as they do not use a realtor or property manager.  The opposition wants to extend that exemption to landlords who use realtors and property managers.  Maryland fair housing law has never provided an exemption for landlords who use realtors or property managers because once a property owner uses a realtor or property manager, they are considered to be "in the business of" being a landlord and are expected to know and understand fair housing law.  Urge your Delegate to vote AGAINST this amendment.

Exemption based on Occupation:  Some landlords claim the HOME Act will prevent landlords from offering rent credits to certain occupations, like teachers.  That claim is incorrect - the HOME Act does not prevent a landlord from offering rent credits or other benefits to particular occupations.  Some local Maryland jurisdictions prohibit discrimination explicitly based on occupation, but Maryland state law does not and the HOME Act does not either.  Urge your Delegate to vote AGAINST this amendment.

About Source of Income Discrimination

Source of income discrimination contributes to concentrations of poverty, racially segregated housing and homelessness. Over 90 local jurisdictions and 15 states prohibit this practice, including 6 counties and 3 cities in Maryland. In 2017, the American Bar Association adopted policy urging governments to prohibit the practice. It is time for Maryland to answer a moral call to action. It’s time we open up housing and job opportunities for tens of thousands of Marylanders! Read more about the Maryland statewide bill to ban source of income discrimination in housing on our website - here.
 

For more information about HB 231, please visit our WEBSITE for the full text and fact sheets or contact Antonia Fasanelli at afasanelli@hprplaw.org or Matt Hill at hillm@publicjustice.org


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Received from Beyond the Boundaries, March 5, 2020

Source: Maryland Insurance Administration email, 2/11/20

2020 HUMAN RIGHTS DAY IN ANNAPOLIS 

Friday, February 21st 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Miller Senate Office Building – West 1
11 Bladen Street Annapolis, Maryland 21401
          *Valid ID needed to enter building

REGISTER HERE & LEARN MORE 

This event is free & open to the public. A continental breakfast & boxed lunch will be provided to all registrants.

The Maryland Association of Human Relations/Human Rights Agencies (MAHRA) invites you to join us for the annual MAHRA 2020 Human Rights Day in Annapolis! This yearly gathering of leaders and advocates passionate about human and civil rights is free and open to the public. The day will feature advocacy updates, check-ins from Senators and Delegates, panel discussions, and dynamic speakers.

Questions? Please contact Spencer Dove, Executive Associate at the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights (MCCR) at spencer.dove@maryland.gov or 410-767-8576.


Victim of Discrimination? File a Complaint3

Training & Partnerships Education and Outreach


Source: MCCR email, February 10, 2020

UPCOMING IMPORTANT SOCIAL JUSTICE DATES REGARDING ANNAPOLIS STATE SESSION

February 9:  SURJ Baltimore Anti Racists Legislative Agenda Day.

SURJ Baltimore - Showing Up for Racial Justice - will host a day of education, planning, and action for the 2020 Maryland legislative session. For more information, go to their website.


February 19: Maryland Catholic Conference Virtual Catholic Day of Action..

This will be the first virtual Catholic Day of Action. It is meant to encourage Catholics in Maryland to join together to send messages, make phone call, and take action on state issues. Read about this.


February 19: Maryland Affordable Housing Coalition 2020 Housing Day.

Coalition members will meet in Annapolis to learn about important legislative initiatives, network with other housing professionals, and tell legislators that rental housing is important and needs strengthening. Read more on the Coalition's website.


February 21: 2020 Human Rights Day in Annapolis

The Maryland Association of Human Relations/Human Rights Agencies (MAHRA) invites you to join us for the annual MAHRA 2020 Human Rights Day in Annapolis! This yearly gathering of leaders and advocates passionate about human and civil rights is free and open to the public. The day will feature advocacy updates, check-ins from Senators and Delegates, panel discussions, and dynamic speakers. The Day will be from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Miller Senate Office Building – West 1, 11 Bladen Street, Annapolis, Maryland 21401. Note that a valid ID is needed to enter the building. Questions? Please contact Spencer Dove, Executive Associate at the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights (MCCR) at spencer.dove@maryland.gov or 410-767-8576. Register here to learn more.


Sources of Information: Beyond the Boundaries, January 31, 2020; MCCR email, February 10, 2020.

Baltimore Zionist District to present "Zero Tolerance: A Panel Discussion on Antisemitism" on February 13th

Thursday, February 13, 2020
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Chizuk Amuno Congregation
8100 Stevenson Road
Pikesville, MD 21208

This will be a panel discussion with:

• Bryan Leib, National Director of Americans Against Antisemitism.
• Sarah N. Stern, Founder & President, Endowment for Middle East Truth.
• Rebecca Harary, Founder & President, CASEPAC.

This event is free of charge and co-sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council.

Ticket registration is required due to security reasons.

All tickets will be checked at the door.

For questions, please email Arielle Ashpes, Marketing and Communications Coordinator of BZD: Arielle@BZDisrael.org or call (410) 484-4510, ext. 106.

BOOK REVIEW

Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases by Viet Thanh Nguyen,  Jacqueline Woodson, and 39 more. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2020. 336 pages. hardcover. $27.99.

and

Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America by Ellis Cose. The New Press. 480 pages. hardcover. $29.99. To be published August 4, 2020.

To mark its 100-year anniversary, the American Civil Liberties Union is publishing these two histories. Both are well worth reading.

Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases was curated in cooperation with the ACLU by authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. It is an anthology of essays about important cases in the organization’s history that includes prominent cases like Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade and Miranda v. Arizona, as well as others whose outcomes influenced the law and living. For example, Hector Tobar discusses Ernesto Miranda, the felon whose wrongful conviction inspired the Miranda rights. There also are essays from Neil Gaiman, Meg Wolitzer, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Louise Erdrich, George Saunders, and others. Chabon and Waldman are donating their advance to the ACLU and the contributors are forgoing payment.

Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America is a history of the ACLU by the nationally celebrated journalist, bestselling author (The Rage of a Privileged Class, The End of Anger), and the ACLU's first official writer-in-residence.

The book tells the story of the ACLU as well as the fight for rights that were legal but not enjoyed by all. It chronicles the ACLU's involvement in work around World War I, the Red Scare, the Scottsboro Boys’ trials, Japanese American internment, McCarthyism, Vietnam, 9/11, Edward Snowden, and the current American President. 

BOOK REVIEW

Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter by Kerri K. Greenidge. Liveright, 2019. 432 pages. hardcover. $35.00.

Interesting biography of William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934) who founded the Boston-based black weekly newspaper The Guardian in the first three decades of the 20th century. Instead of the accomodationist racial policies of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, Trotter advocated a radical vision of black liberation that eventually produced leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. The the first man of color to earn a Phi Beta Kappa key at Harvard University, he also was active in protest movements for civil rights during the 1900s and 1910s. During a 1914 meeting with President Woodrow Wilson, he protested Wilson's introduction of racial segregation into the federal workplace. He joined with W. E. B. Du Bois in founding the Niagara Movement in 1905, a forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The author teaches in Tufts University’s Consortium of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora. She also is director of Tufts' program in American studies and co-director of the African American Trail Project.

Selected in the New York Times • Times Critics Top Books of 2019.

Recommended.