Director's Note

Dear Residents, Neighbors, and Friends:

Happy fall! October brings so many things to celebrate and honor, such as Hispanic heritage, Indigenous peoples, disability in employment, LGBTQ history, and so much more. Here at the Office of Human Rights, we are celebrating the accomplishments of our dedicated and passionate staff as we close Fiscal Year 2022 and enter Fiscal Year 2023.

At the beginning of the fiscal year in October 2021, OHR set out to accomplish so many things and I am proud to share a few of those achievements with you. With so many new laws and program areas in FY22, OHR was in a phase of growth and rebirth. To sustain the growth, OHR recruited and hired 20 new employees, which increased the agency size by about 39%. This growth led to approximately 37% reduction in case load for our investigators. With addition of more staff, OHR’s legal unit was able to secure several voluntary compliance agreements where employers agree to make major changes to their anti-discrimination policies and practices, whereby bringing more businesses into compliance with the D.C. Human Rights Act. 

OHR also focused on providing more resources for youth bullying prevention and I am proud to report that in partnership with D.C. Public Libraries, we distributed over 1,400 Bullying Tip sheets and another set of 1,400+ Parent Bullying Prevention Brochures. These documents are available on our website here. 

With new staff at OHR, the team worked to revamp our Human Rights Liaison training. This year we trained 143 new HRLs. This training is open to everyone and if you have never taken part in it, I highly encourage you to check out our next HRL training. Until then, you can learn about upcoming trainings in our newsletter. 



Last but not least, OHR established a new program, now known as “Creating Safer Spaces Program” (CSSP), which is responsible for certifying sexual harassment trainers for the tipped wage industry and human rights trainers in long-term care facilities. The long-term care facility trainings will focus on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression discrimination. As of the end of FY22, OHR had trained over 40 professional trainers to deliver sexual harassment trainings and in its first month of compliance review, OHR received over 150 sexual harassment policies from businesses. 

There is so much more to share, so keep your eyes peeled for our FY22 Annual Report, or if you can’t wait, you can peruse through our FY21 Annual Report to learn more about the growth at OHR. In the meantime, OHR in partnership with the Commission on Human Rights will be making three community awards to honor our local heroes at our 2022 Human Rights gala in December. To learn more about how to nominate someone you know, visit our link here. 

As always, wishing you a warm and safe month of October! 

Yours in service,

Hnin Khaing

Interim Director