A panel established by Gov. Paul LePage to investigate if the Maine Human Rights Commission has been biased against businesses said that it found no evidence supporting the claim, writing in its extensive report that the accusations were in part based on misconceptions of the commission.
“We think the report very clearly and unambiguously finds that we are factually not biased and don’t act in a way that is biased toward anyone in our process, nevermind labor,” said Amy Sneirson, executive director of the commission, according to the Bangor Daily News. “We also think that anyone looking at our annual reports could have found the same thing a year ago without needing this review panel.”
Included in the 30-page report, which was based on interviews and documents from over the past year, are the findings that the five-person commission needs more funding in order to fulfill its duty of enforcing the Maine Human Rights Act and that more education is needed to rebuff claims of bias.
“The review panel did not identify any evidence of actual prejudice against respondents or bias in favor of complainants,” reads the report, which was obtained by the BDN. “The perception of prejudice or bias is based, at least in part, on misunderstandings regarding why [the Maine Human Rights Commission] does its work, what the [commission’s] work is, and how the [commission] performs its role. … In general terms, the perceptions of prejudice against respondents or bias in favor of petitions were not the fault of the commission or its staff.”
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