The Michigan Department of Civil Rights is taking an in-depth look at the impact of discrimination on health at its annual summit, on June 27th.

The sessions are gonna examine how bias can result in some very real issues that affect a person's wellbeing, such as stress and a lack of access to health and social resources.

In addition to raising awareness of the problem, experts are gonna offer best practices for dealing with the health issues that arise from discrimination.

I got more details on the Civil Rights Summit from the department's Executive Director, John Johnson Jr.

So I wanna start in a little bit of an unusual place for this conversation.

We're talking about a health summit here in the state of Michigan, and you are the Executive Director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.

I wanna spend just a little time talking about the connection between civil rights and health and health issues.

I'm not sure everyone always makes that connection.

- Absolutely, thank you.

Well as you indicated, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights is involved in health issues.

We are the civil rights enforcement agency for this state.

We're charged with enforcing the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act and the Persons with Disability Civil Rights Act.

And certainly we receive complaints, and then we investigate them, and then we try to facilitate them if we find there's discrimination or ultimately perhaps to bring a charge.

Health issues are one of the obviously complaints that we receive.

They could fall in any number of areas, it could be certainly because of healthcare, or could be even of environmental justice housing issues.

And so people can assert their rights in terms of they think they've been the victim of discrimination because of their race, religion, natural origin, et cetera.

Then, we certainly would take that and pursue that.

We also look at DEI issues, diversity, inclusion, and equity issues.

And health equity is certainly one of the issues that we've been dealing with for a while.

We had a summit last year and we dealt with the "-isms" and how they intersect, the racism, ableism, classism, sexism.

And one of the issues that we dealt with was health.

We also dealt with other issues such as education, and economics, and voting, and housing.

But we did deal with health issues also, so this is sort of like an extension of that.

We talked about health equity issues during that conference.

Now we're going to sort of expand on that by examining the impact of discrimination in the health area.

We're looking at a number of areas in that area to deal with again protected classes of which we're again charged with making sure that we enforce their rights under the civil rights laws that I mentioned, and how they're affected again by health disparities and health inequities.

- Yeah, and let's talk about what some of that looks like, essentially the outcomes that look different because of the discrimination in health access and healthcare upfront.

- Right.

Well, we'll be exploring a number of areas.

One of them is environmental justice and health.

Certainly to look at how segregation, and redlining, and food security, and all that, have contributed to inadequate health opportunities for those living in certain areas.

We're looking at the LGBTQ community in regards to health issues, and how we look at health issues for a more equitable fashion in regards to that community.

Social determinants, lookin' at the systems that exist that contribute to health and health inequities.

I mentioned some earlier in terms of housing, but I also know the educational system.

Lookin' at disability in terms of how access to technology and a recognition of, "Oh, again there's discrimination in the healthcare industry in regards to those with disabilities."

There was an extremely great number of work, a lot of work done by Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist's COVID-19 Racial Disparities Task Force.

We've invited him to come and speak along with the former rep, Tommy Stallworth, who headed up that task force, to talk about their findings of some of the things that we need to do in order to implement those policies.

And finally, a fascinating look again at housing and the effect of this redlining discrimination on health in the housing industry.

And that's a teaser for something we'd like to do a little later in terms of of exploring discrimination in the housing industry.

And this is focused on health, and we'll be hearing from Dr Mehdipanah out of University of Michigan, who will be talking about her data that links redlining and discrimination to health inequities.

And that's a teaser to a longer conversation we'll have later on about mortgage lending and discrimination in the housing industry.

So, there's a connection.

All these involve civil rights enjoyed by our citizens, and we'll be exploring some of these aspects during our summit.

- Yeah.

And when you have a summit like this which is, you know, presenting information and allowing for discussion about these things, what are some of the things that you look for as outcomes from the summit itself?

Things that you hope to be different, or even possible I suppose, because of the focus on this?

- Exactly, and you're actually correct that we come together not only to discuss these issues but to come up with strategies to actually try to remedy them.

Some of the outcomes of last year's summit, by the way, will be a couple of things.

We'll be launching a voting rights project.

One of the recommendations from that summit was to capture some of the real life inequities we see in the voting process.

And to capture those in a compelling sort of interesting way.

We'll be launching a media campaign that voting's a civil right, and we'll be focusing on that along with voter education.

That came out of the voting rights summit.

Again this health is another one, looking at this health summit.

And one of the strategies that we have we'll be coming out and looking at policy because we know that's what moves everything, public policy.

Certainly we receive complaints of discrimination, but it is the lawmakers and our executive branch certainly that initiates and passes public policy that affect these changes.

And that's really the goal is to bring this to attention, and then to come up with strategies that we could do in order to affect public policy.

- Yeah.

So when you think about Michigan, and you just mentioned lawmakers, the legislature, their role in this, the executive branch, the governor, and the lieutenant governor, their role in all this.

Tell me about some things that you see as possibilities and I guess hopeful possibilities because of the folks who occupy those seats right now.

And then tell me about some challenges that you see that maybe worry you.

- Well certainly, we've already witnessed a couple of the changes.

The expansion of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which now there'll be two new protected classes.

One for sexual orientation, and the other for gender expression and identity.

That will take effect right now, scheduled for March.

So, that's an immediate impact.

Now mind you, that the Civil Rights Commission issued an interpretive statement back in 2018, sayin' the same thing, which is upheld by the Supreme Court.

And now, this has been codified.

So now we look at that as a significant change and certainly what's happened.

There's other things that are brewing in the legislature in terms of they've also changed it so that now, non-therapeutic abortions, you cannot be the victim of discrimination based on that.

We'll also see some other changes that perhaps they've advanced that I think will strengthen civil rights enforcement and rights here in Michigan.

So, that's a positive.

Some of the things I think that probably... Oh, and also I think there's been legislation that will be introduced that will strengthen our hate laws.

Right now, they're not as strong as they could be, and an effort's afoot in order to strengthen those so that it broadens the categories in which the law enforcement can go after people who conduct hate crimes.

Some problems that we see, well certainly always when we look at change, you know, that people sometimes are resistant to that.

And we recognize that just because these laws have been passed doesn't mean that people automatically will fall lockstep into what has been done.

We've seen that over the years.

Laws have been passed, changed policy, but it's a culture change that we need.

And that's some of the role of civil rights in terms of not only enforcing the law, but going out and conducting implicit bias, culture competency, ADA training, sort of educational work that's needed in order to change minds and change cultures.

Folks have to look at themselves, have to look at whether not they're really being inclusive in their policies.

We're happy to help them in terms of looking at their policies.

'Cause sometimes, you look at obviously items with filters.

The more people at the table, the better we are in terms of looking at change in policies and reformation.

And that's where I see the effort really being sort of difficult, is change, that's always difficult, especially cultural change.

But, I'm optimistic because we see what's happening in the legislature.

And we see a society that's embracing change at a rapid pace.

So, that makes it very hopeful that we see that change will once again flow through most of our society as the years go on.

- Yeah, yeah.

Okay, John Johnson Jr, congratulations on holding another summit, on June 27th, and we look forward to what comes outta that.

Thanks for joining us on "Black American Journal."

- I just wanna emphasize, as I said, is that suburban collection showplace.

People can sign up by goin' to our website, michigan.gov/mdcr.

It's free, open to the public, 8:30 to 4:00.

Everyone's invited to be a part of this summit.

Thank you so much for your time, Stephen, we appreciate that.

- This is the third year the nation will celebrate Juneteenth as a federal holiday.