BALTIMORE — The U.S. Justice Department has initiated a civil rights investigation into the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) to assess whether the agency’s employee training programs unlawfully segregate staff based on race, officials announced on Monday.
The investigation, led by the Civil Rights Division, will scrutinize whether BCHD’s employment practices discriminate against or categorize employees by race, color, or national origin, potentially violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Separating employees into training groups based on their race is discriminatory, illegal, and un-American. Such practices are divisive and foster a racially hostile work environment,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Racial segregation of employees is deeply offensive to the American guarantee of equal rights under the law, and it will not be tolerated.”
Reports suggest that BCHD conducts its “racial equity training” in race-specific groups, which include a “white caucus” and a “people of color caucus.”
According to materials from the department, the white caucus is designed as “a group of white individuals who convene to build analysis, awareness, stamina, and strategy to confront systemic racism and internalized white supremacy.” BCHD claims that these sessions enable white staff to “reflect on our racial conditioning without depending on people of color for insights or subjecting them to our process.”
Read the notice letter here.
