Employment and Housing Discrimination

It is legal in West Virginia to fire someone simply because of their sexual orientation. Likewise, it's perfectly legal to deny someone a hotel room or evict them from a house because of their sexual orientation. It's not fair.

In the 2009 legislation session, Fairness WV worked with the legislature to advance EHNDA, the Employment and Housing Nondiscrimination Act as a remedy to add protections for sexual orientations to the Human Rights Act. For the Frequently Asked questions about last session's bill, Senate Bill 238, click here.

Safe Schools

Every student in West Virginia has a right to an public education free of discrimination and harrassment. Policy-making bodies should ensure this by adopting policies that have non-discrimination and anti-harrassment measures that include sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.

Fairness WV will work with policy makers in Charleston and in communities around the state to ensure our students are free to go to school without harrassment or intimidation.

To learn more about safe schools, visit GLSEN 

Hate Crimes

The Mathew Shepard act, currently sitting in Congress, would add sexual orientation and gender identity/expression to existing federal hate crimes protections. Why are hate crimes protections important? These protections allow the Justice Department to provide assistance or take over investigations in states and communities where law enforcement is either unable or unwilling to investigate the crime. In West Virginia, there have been numerous instances of LGBT people being targeted simply for being who they are. Fairness WV will be working to pass hate crimes protections at the state level and pressuring our delegation in Washington to do the same.

Click here to learn more about the importance of hate crimes legislation.