Gov. Phil Scott establishes Racial Equity Task Force

Press release – June 2, 2020
Office of Governor Phil Scott

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Governor Phil Scott has signed an Executive Order to form the Racial Equity Task Force as a component of a broader state effort to promote racial, ethnic and cultural equity, including in its response to COVID-19.

“We cannot continue to treat racism and examples like the one in Minneapolis as uncomfortable and rare events, which is why we’ve been working on a Racial Equity Task Force in recent months,” said Governor Scott. “A task force is not the cure-all for what ails us. It is going to take some soul searching and real change—individually and systemically—to make a difference. The good news is, we can fix this without waiting for a vaccine or other solutions out of our control. It just takes us uniting to make this a better country for everyone because, like the coronavirus, this is literally in our hands.”

The Task Force will undertake three major projects including:

  • Evaluating structures of support for racially diverse populations, including a focus on the racial disparities in health outcomes highlighted by COVID-19;
  • Reviewing current state and federal law on hate speech and freedom of speech and considering changes to state law to clarify the path for prosecuting harassment, hate speech and other bias-motivated crimes; and
  • Studying and presenting options to encourage Vermonters from diverse, marginalized or underrepresented racial and ethnic groups to run and serve in public office at all levels.

It will submit recommendations to the Governor on the first project by August 15 and preliminary recommendations on the second and third by December 15. The group will also provide guidance as needed by the Governor.

“This task force will contribute to advancing equity in Vermont, and yet it is only one piece of that effort,” said Executive Director of Racial Equity Xusana Davis, who will chair the task force. “The group will shine further light on existing disparities, but it is up to individuals, institutions and local and state government to make it happen. This is such important work, and it is everyone’s work.”

The Task Force will be chaired by Davis and include up to seven additional members, including representatives from the Governor’s office, law enforcement, a Vermont chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Vermont, the Vermont Human Rights Commission, and a member of the public.

Click here to view the full text of the Governor’s Executive Order, including additional details on the group’s charge.

Image courtesy of Michael Bielawski/TNR

15 thoughts on “Gov. Phil Scott establishes Racial Equity Task Force

  1. How about we just continue to treat everyone the same without regards to their skin color, religion or gender? There is no difference in the crimes of murder, rape, burglary or stealing to the victims. The perpetrators need to all be prosecuted the same regardless of categories listed. Justice is supposed to be blind, not indexed for liberals to feel better they are punishing one group to make others feel better. The ironic reality is that most every city that has been victimized by antifa and anarchists are all run by liberal Democrats that don’t want to enforce laws or prosecute criminals unless it’s a father playing in the park with his kids, a hairdresser trying to feed her family or peaceful protesters demanding their right to attend church or other essential business & activities against the overwhelming amount of petty tyrants making Executive Orders to curb our liberties.

    • Controlled cities are controlled by NWO pimps….who don’t recognize our constitution or your wisdom. Their purpose is subversion, create chaos and then probably have the United Nations come and “save us”.

      It’s all non-sense, written out in their plan books if people are interested.

      • they want us fighting each other, grouping all democrats and republicans as the same, when both insiders, the rino’s and NWO pimps are unamerican at best. All planned out, easy to control people with hatred and fear, both in high commodities these days.

  2. So lets see, the schools are doing this, with the advise from BLM, so you know how that will turn out. The Governor or Zuckerman hired a transplant from Chicago to do this also and now Scott is burdening the taxpayers again with more nonsense.
    What I find appalling is this “Republican” Governor, cough, cough, wants to “encourage” minorities, in the whitest state in the country, to run for gov’t offices. Has this man lost his mind?! Scott is as Left as Pelossi and Shumer. We have to get him out.

  3. Not a necessary task force to be created. More pandering to the various minority ‘grievance industrial committees’. Vermont does not have a serious or widespread problem with abuse of minority groups by our police or other citizens. Investigating a non-problem only serves to amplify the views of agitators who are more interested in causing troubled, i.e. the female person who spent most of her time at the rally in Burlington on Saturday spewing obscenities at people who did no harm. If she is the best spokesperson the NAACP can come up with, perhaps they should leave the state.

  4. The best racial equity task force would be enforcing our constitution. It’s an interesting little document, perhaps those in Montpelier should familiarize themselves with it. You know that document people were sworn to uphold and protect?

  5. This hot button racial issue will be taken advantage of by limpD Scott to avoid dealing with the myriad of far more important issues facing Vermont. The budget insolvency, widespread unemployment and destroyed or struggling businesses come first to mind.

    • Seems the gov. commissioned a panel to study the number of commisions we have created and to eliminate those dormant of unnecessary. NO ONE KNEW how MANY Commisions and boards there were!!!

      So lets have a brand new Diversity Commisioner, and a new commission to study “Commisions and Boards?!?”

      None will be eliminated anyway. We don’t even know how much tax money we spend to support Boards and Commisions we don’t know exist – freaky wierd.

  6. If Chicago”s own Kiah Morris is shown to be at all involved with said Committee you’ll know where this is headed.

  7. Anyone watching the network news lately or following the mainstream media would think that Adolph Hitler, the entire Nazi army and a legion of Civil War Reconstruction klansmen had risen from from the dead and invaded the United States. I have never seen so much outlandish hysteria perpetrated by the media in my entire life.

    In trying to gain some semblance of perspective in all this madness I was compelled to do some research on the subject of hate groups in the United States. This is what I found.

    There may be 200-1200 neo-Nazi members in 32 different states. The largest neo-Nazi group in the U.S. is the National Socialist Movement, which is estimated to have 400 members. Regarding the Ku Klux Klan, the Wikipedia entry states the KKK has “between 5,000 and 8,000 members nationwide.” It has that in the 1920s the KKK included about 15 percent of the nation’s eligible population, or about 4–5 million men.

    Today the U.S. is a nation of 323.1 million people. In our republic, if the experts are to be trusted, there exists an estimated 9,200 philosophically committed militant racists. This is .000028 percent of our population.

    In the last century the hearts and minds of an overwhelming majority of Americans have undergone a massive, positive paradigm shift in how we view one another. This is the good news. The bad news is how sad it is to see so many good citizens buying into the media narrative that anyone who has an opposing view is somehow a Nazi or a racist.

    I have my own solution to put out the raging fire that the media continues to pour gas on. I am shutting off my television and turning off the computer. I am going to call my black friends, my white friends, my Indian friends, my conservative friends and my liberal friends and tell them how much I love them — not because of their color or political views, but for simply being good friends. It is a small act. One has to start somewhere.

    • Stu, this was all planned out. They are all in it together. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better. It’s all part of the plan, have their operatives literally burn America, and there is no coincidence for it happening in Dem cities. The NWO pimps have infiltrated and taken over where control from the American loving democrats.

      Yeah, Soros funds, others funds, Hollywood, which is owned by the Chinese….has all their minions pimping for them too. It’s going to get much worse, it has to in order for the NWO Pimps to come in an “save the day”….soon wait for it, their will be calls from the United Nations to come in. Come in to “save America”…….that’s sophistry for a coup.

      This has been done to many nations in the last century…sop for those who like to subvert other countries…..

      Hopefully Trump can get things under control the are going to push like our country has never, never seen before. None of this is natural or spontaneous, all planned.

  8. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …

    Who gets to determine what speech is ‘hate speech’? I certainly don’t trust the members of this ‘racial equity’ committee to be the judge of that.

  9. It’s all form over substance with this clown, as he kowtows to the communists — all while walking just enough of a thin line to keep the conservative minority and the moderates in this state voting for him.

    • I don’t think that many conservatives would vote for him at all. Unfortunately it appears most don’t bother to vote in the primary anyways.

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