Civil Rights
As Attorney General, Bill Lockyer established for the first time within the state Department of Justice a new Civil Rights Enforcement Section dedicated exclusively to civil rights enforcement. He directed this new section to work aggressively to protect Californians from discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, religion, age, marital status, sexual orientation or disability.
"We owe it to our children, the future of California, to fulfill the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. that people will 'not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,'" Attorney General Lockyer said in establishing the new section in January 1999.
The mission of the Civil Rights Enforcement Section is to work with the public, state, federal and local government agencies, and with civil rights and community groups to identify civil rights issues and vigorously prosecute those who have violated the law, as well as seek the strongest remedies to deter further violations of those laws.
As an important public service, the Attorney General is making available in multiple languages, including Punjabi, Hindi, and Arabic, a brochure on Preventing Hate Crime: What We Can Do.
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