Proposed Wichita anti-discrimination law faces opposition, confusion as vote nears
Wichita City Hall is considering an anti-discrimination ordinance to replace a section of city code that was mysteriously repealed in 1999, but some LGBTQ community advocates said it’s a disappointment because there’d be no way for victims to use it.
The draft ordinance as it is currently written has no enforcement mechanism for victims of discrimination to file a complaint, which prompted Tom Witt, executive director of Equality Kansas, to declare it “worthless, absolutely worthless.”
“They write three pages of ordinance and then say ‘We’re not going to enforce it,’” Witt said.
But the ordinance as written may not be what the council winds up voting on: Mayor Brandon Whipple said Saturday that he’ll offer an amendment to remove language that states the new ordinance would have no enforcement process.
A regulation of its type is not new to Wichita. For a few months in 1977-1978, the city had an ordinance banning discrimination against gay people. But it was repealed in a referendum where citizens voted it down by a four to one margin, according to contemporary news reports in The Eagle.
A month after that vote, the leader of the anti-discrimination campaign was evicted after someone set fire to the apartment building where he lived. Other advocates either left town or retreated from public life for their personal safety.
At a City Council meeting Friday to review the agenda, it was unclear why a similar ordinance had been repealed in 1999. And the only solid idea that emerged for helping discrimination victims in Wichita was a suggestion that the city could post phone numbers on its web site for state and federal equal-opportunity commissions.
The proposed new ordinance would generally ban discrimination citywide on the basis of “actual or perceived age, color, disability, familial status, gender identity, genetic information, national origin or ancestry, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status or any other factor protected by law.”
It would specifically ban discrimination within City Hall and require contractors doing business with the city to certify that they don’t discriminate either.
Whipple said after talking with civil-rights advocates, he’ll move to delete the paragraph precluding city enforcement.
While that wouldn’t create an enforcement process right away, Whipple said it would allow the City Council to revisit the ordinance after the newly created Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights Advisory Board gets up to speed.
Whipple first appointed the group to the mayor’s office last year and the City Council later agreed to make it an official city board.
The new group is currently working with Wichita State University to get organized, he said.
“Once they are fully established and setting that vision for Wichita, they can look toward this and maybe they’ll be that mediation board (to handle complaints), maybe they’ll make other recommendations for us,” he said.
He said the point of the ordinance is to bring Wichita in line with other cities in the state, such as Manhattan and Olathe, that have higher equality ratings.
“It’s extremely important to know that when it comes to creating a more equitable and just city, you don’t take one vote and call it good,” he said. “It’s an ongoing process that I think the city of Wichita is committed to.”
Wichita City Council confusion
At Friday’s agenda review meeting, council member Jeff Blubaugh said he was concerned about “some specific unintended consequences” from the proposed ordinance.
“I’m trying to understand here some of the identity things . . . where identity and science might not add up,” he said. “Is that age, is that race, is that gender? What are we looking at here on this policy?
“You know, if there is a 30-year-old employee who wants to identify as 62 and take advantage of the city’s pension program, how do we address issues like that?”
After an “OK” from Layton and an awkward pause, council member Becky Tuttle broke the silence with a joke: “I’d go younger, not older,” she said, chuckling.
Council members at Friday’s meeting also expressed puzzlement over some of the protections in the ordinance, such as banning discrimination based on familial status and genetic information.
The most common forms of familial status discrimination are landlords refusing to rent to families with children, segregating them into certain areas of a building or placing unreasonable restrictions on their use of common amenities, such as pools and open space.
Genetic information discrimination usually crops up in the workplace when management acts against people assumed to be at increased risk of disease or disability because of results of genetic testing or family history.
Layton said he would make sure council members have the federal definitions of the protected classes before a scheduled vote Tuesday.
He also said the only actual enforcement he sees coming from the ordinance as it’s presently written would be within the city government, where there is already a non-discrimination rule embedded in the human resources policy.
Kerry Wilks, the chair of Equality Kansas, said the organization is disappointed and doesn’t support the proposed ordinance — which is almost identical to legislation passed by Topeka late last year that the group also opposed.
“It will not give assistance to our marginalized communities, including LGBTQ persons,” she said. “Our communities deserve real protections instead of platitudes.”
Witt said under the proposed ordinance the city couldn’t even rein in its own contractors from discriminating, let alone outside businesses, landlords and others.
“Let’s assume a (city) contractor is out of compliance,” he said. “And let’s say I work for that contractor. Where’s my recourse?”
Whipple disputed that, saying even without an enforcement process, the city would still have plenty of leverage to ensure compliance from its contractors and licensees.
“Following ordinances is a condition of contracting with the city,” Whipple said.
A history of discrimination
The ordinance itself has a long and checkered history.
Originally, gender identity and sexual orientation were not included in the anti-discrimination ordinance that was repealed in 1999.
City officials were unable to say why the 1999 council repealed the anti-discrimination ordinance, which covered “race, sex, religion, age, color, national origin, ancestry, physical handicap and marital status.”
That repeal apparently passed largely unnoticed during a sweeping realignment of city government that disbanded the Civil Rights and Services Board that had been created to handle discrimination complaints.
The council at the time also disbanded its Commission on the Status of Persons with Disabilities, Commission on the Status of Women, Human Services Board and several others — and replaced elected Citizen Participation Organizations with council member-appointed District Advisory Boards, according to Eagle reports.
The Civil Rights and Services Board began its work in about 1983 and at one point had an investigator on hand to prepare discrimination cases.
The board initially had power to refer those cases to Municipal Court judges, who could order reinstatement of people fired from their jobs for discriminatory reasons, with back pay and up to $2,000 in damages.
The board was stripped of that authority in 1986, in favor of having any discrimination referrals handled by the city attorney’s office. The disempowered board withered and was practically inactive in the 1990s.
Jean Schodorf, who later became a Republican state senator representing Wichita, served on the board in the ‘80s and said it mostly resulted in just talk.
“Sometimes there were resolutions that went to the City Council, but nothing,” she said. “The boards had good intentions, but not a lot of action over the years. The City Council’s always been very careful about power and delegating responsibility — good talk, good proposals, but nothing ever happens.”
Schodorf left Wichita after losing her Senate seat to then-City Council member Michael O’Donnell in 2012 and now lives at her family homestead in Sedan. But she had some advice for the city she once represented in the Capitol.
“I think they need to brush up on that original (anti-discrimination) ordinance because that sounds much better than this one,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to do something with some teeth in it.”
This story was originally published June 12, 2021 at 2:31 PM with the headline "Proposed Wichita anti-discrimination law faces opposition, confusion as vote nears."
