Celebrating

Black History Month

February is Black History Month and the 2025 theme is "African Americans and Labor."

According to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), this year's theme "focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people. Indeed, work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture. Be it the traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social injustice, Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora."

To learn more, click here.

NJ Division on Civil Rights Issues Statement on Civil Rights Protections for Immigrant Communities

On January 31, the NJ Division on Civil Rights issued a Statement on Civil Rights Protection for Immigrant Communities.

The statement begins, "The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD) prohibits employers, housing providers, and places of public accommodation—that is, places open to the public, which include schools, hospitals, health care facilities, stores, and police departments, to name just a few—from discriminating based on national origin, ancestry, nationality, race, and other protected characteristics. These protections apply no matter your citizenship status or your immigration status. Under the LAD, all people—including non-U.S. citizens, refugees, and migrants—have an equal right to live free from discrimination."

To read the statement in its entirety, click here. 

NJ Division on Civil Rights also Issues Statement on Protecting New Jerseyans from Discrimination

Also on January 31, the NJ Division on Civil Rights issued a Statement on Protecting LGBTQIA+ New Jerseyans from Discrimination.

This statement reads, "The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), our state’s landmark civil rights law, remains in full force regardless of the federal government’s actions. The LAD expressly prohibits New Jersey employers, housing providers, and places of public accommodation—that is, places open to the public—from discriminating based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and other protected characteristics. These protections apply to people working or living in New Jersey, as well as people attending schools, visiting health care facilities, accessing government services, interacting with police departments, and more. These protections mean that it is unlawful to discriminate against someone because they are transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming."

To read the statement in full, click here.