USCCR
What is the USCCR?
According to its website, the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) was established by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as an “independent, bipartisan, fact-finding federal agency. The mission of the USCCR is to inform the development of national civil rights policy and enhance enforcement of federal civil rights laws. It pursues this mission by studying alleged deprivations of voting rights and alleged discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice.”
Missing from their mission is military service, protected by 18 USC § 1389.
The Commission has ignored Section 4712 of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) of 2009, meaning it is denying military families of their Constitutional right to equal representation. In a 2019 briefing report titled “In the Name of Hate: Examining the Federal Government’s Role in Responding to Hate Crimes,” the Commission ignored Section 4712 of the Act, which created hate crimes protections for military families during their service and up to five years after discharge. These protections were made law at the same time as sections that created protections for sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, so it is not clear why military families were left out of the Commission’s report. The precise number of individuals afected by this is unknown, but there are at least 4.8 million active status personnel and families affected. The number of veteran families within five years of discharge is harder to track, but is at least another several million.
