 And so I want to take a break at 10.45. So what I'd like to do next is have Damien come back on and give us an overview of age 329, which is a little bit more substantial in policy additions proposals than age 320 was as important as age 320 is. This one has a little bit more going with it textually. And I just wanted to have Damien give us an overview of the bill and we'll take a five minute break and then we'll come back for testimony on this bill. Damien. Hi. So just a very brief overview since we have so many witnesses coming after me. What this bill would do is it does a couple of things first it, there's federal case precedent which kind of established that one of the basis for determining if sexual harassment meets the standard for being a violation of the law. So one of the ways that it can get there is it would need to be severe and pervasive. This standard, you're gonna hear from witnesses about why that standard may or may not be problematic but what this would do is it would say you don't need to prove that the harassment was severe and pervasive in order to prevail in a claim of sexual harassment. What it would also do is establish a uniform six year statute of limitations for claims related to discrimination and employment, public accommodations and housing. Right now the statute of limitations varies between three and six years depending on whether you're asserting a claim for economic damages or a claim for personal injury. And then the other thing that this would do is it also proposes to amend the employment discrimination law to provide that an employee need not pursue an internal grievance process prior to filing a claim and does not have to demonstrate that a comparable employee was treated differently to prove that discrimination occurred. So what that is doing is it's addressing issues where there may be a power dynamic or perceived power dynamic at work or perhaps a perceived issue related to futility with pursuing the internal grievance process. And what it's saying is that if the employee elects to take their grievance outside of the internal grievance process by contacting the attorney general's office or the Human Rights Commission or a private attorney to bring a case, the fact that they didn't pursue the internal grievance process isn't going to count against them in terms of determining whether harassment or discrimination actually occurred in their case. And the other piece here is again, they don't have to show that a comparable employee was treated differently to prove that discrimination occurred. And then finally, what this bill does is it adds a definition of what workplace harassment is. So this isn't just sexual harassment which has gotten more discussion in the news in recent years, this is harassment on the basis of any protected characteristics. So one of the witnesses you heard from this morning described her own experiences of workplace harassment as a state employee which formed the basis for her claim at the Human Rights Commission. And so this is basically just establishing a definition of what that workplace harassment is. And it's also specifically calling out workplace harassment as a prohibited, something that's prohibited by the law. So it's changing the language from shall not discriminate to shall not harass or discriminate against an individual. So that's a really brief overview and I'll do a walkthrough of the bill later where we can go into the individual sections but that gives you a sense in where this is looking at not just the employment discrimination laws but also the public accommodations and housing discrimination laws. So it would extend the protections to the other common discrimination laws that could be used here. So it could relate to people being discriminated against trying to seek services from the state, trying to go to a retailer to rent a hotel room and housing rentals. All of those things are also covered by this bill and we'll get into that in more detail when I do a walkthrough. Are there any questions at the moment? Mr. Chair, I see a question from Representative Kalaki. Yes, Representative Kalaki. Thank you. Damien, it's a current statute says severe and pervasive. How is that defined? So it's the current case law establishes the severe and pervasive standard. And so what this is is it's essentially, it's something that if you're getting to the trial court on your claim, it's going to be something that's determined based on the facts of the case. And again, the various witnesses you have coming after me can talk about the concerns and considerations that might arise around that and why that standard either might be a good bar or might set the bar too high. But one of the challenges here is that there have been some cases in recent years where in one case in particular, jumps to mind where the ruling by the court ruled against the person claiming discrimination and they essentially ruled that it couldn't have been severe because it didn't happen for long enough. And that, or no, it couldn't have been severe. I'm trying to think, but it was basically, it couldn't have been pervasive because it didn't happen for long enough and it couldn't have been severe for another reason related to that. And it was like the claimant couldn't have succeeded because if they, oh, it couldn't have been severe because they waited a month to complain about it. So there was no way for them to succeed because it hadn't occurred for long enough for them to meet the pervasive standard, but it also wasn't severe enough for them to complain about it immediately. And the case there, it's been a little while since I've read it, as you can probably tell. But it was one of these things where you were kind of left scratching your head at the judge's ruling, trying to parse out the severe and pervasive. And so that's, I think the witnesses coming after me can express that, but I think that's one of the concerns with this case law is that when you have the case law being applied to individual cases, you run into scenarios where the bar is set at a place where it's unattainable even though there's evidence that the discrimination or harassment was occurring. And so what this is really, this bill is looking at is should we lower that bar in order to better address and prevent discrimination that's occurring in the workplace. And yeah, I think that's the best I can explain it without trying to advocate. Appreciate it, thanks. So yeah. All right, thank you, Damien. And we do have a long list of folks who can probably get into the nuances of some of what we're looking at. We're gonna take a break right now and we'll come back at 10.45. We're returning to our discussion on age 329 and following our agenda, the first witness we have is Carrie Brown from the Vermont Commission of Women who was just here on 320. So welcome back Carrie. And just as a reminder, we have a number of people here to discuss this bill today. So for our committee's purposes, let's focus on listening to the testimony and reserving questions for the end, if we can get there. Thanks. Carrie Brown, welcome back. Thank you very much for the record. I'm Carrie Brown. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Commission on Women. And we just, for those of you who weren't, who didn't hear my last testimony just to reiterate we're an independent state agency, Vermont Commission on Women. We work to advance rights and opportunities for women. And we are particularly focused on economic equity and security and the ability of women to be able to go to work, have a good job, support their families, stay at work. And one of the largest obstacles that women face at work is harassment. And the, we hear, we have an intake, an information referral system. And so people contact us when they are often kind of at the ends of their rope where they have tried every other resource they can find and haven't been able to get any help. And so we hear from, we hear about some of the most complex and discouraging cases that where people are trying to figure out what resources are available to them. And so I can tell you, and this may line up with a, also just sort of a common sense understanding that there is a vast gap between the kinds of things that people experience, the kind of problematic behavior and treatment that people experience at work and what the law addresses and what remedies are available to people under the law. And so part of that is because it's very, very difficult to navigate a legal system. It's very difficult to understand what exactly your rights are. It's very challenging to know whether some behavior that you're experiencing is actually violating the law or is just something that you're supposed to put up with. And part of it is that the law in some ways can be excessively restrictive and make it very difficult for people to bring those cases. And so this bill addresses that overall problem and it does it in a couple of specific ways, which I think would be really helpful. So first of all, the idea of changing the statute of limitations so that we have a consistent statute of limitations makes a lot of sense and making it longer makes a lot of sense. We definitely hear from people who have lots of good reasons for not filing a complaint immediately. So it may be that your boss is the one who's harassing you. It may be that you're not really sure what the procedure is. It may be that you're hoping it will just go away. It may be that you've seen it happen for so long and to so many other people that you think this is just how it is and I just have to live with it until I can find another job. And so it may be that once you've left your job, once you've gotten away you're feeling a little bit more ready to take that on. It can also be challenging to find the resources that you need to be able to pursue a complaint. This is part of the calls that we get from people is they don't really know where to turn or who to call or how to find help. And so sometimes it can take a while to do that. The Me Too movement was an example of a time where there was such an upswell in our society of people coming forward about harassment cases that it emboldened a lot of other people to say, oh, well, you know what that thing that happens to me three years ago was definitely harassment. I want to do something about it now and so making sure that they're not left out because of very good reasons for not coming forward immediately is, I think is really important. Another one of the pieces in the bill talks about the internal grievance process and doesn't require somebody to pursue an internal grievance or complaint process in order to be for their employer to be responsible for the harassment. And this is also really important, particularly when we hear a lot of stories from people who they work with their employers and maybe they're family friends or it's a small employer and they are just feeling like I can't go through that process. Or again, it's my boss who's harassing me that it's not really safe to do that. And again, there are very valid reasons why someone might feel that way. We require all employers to notify employees about that sexual harassment is illegal. We require them to notify all employees about the avenues that they can pursue including the Attorney General's office, the EOC, the Human Rights Commission. We only require employers with five or more employees to have a formal procedure for employees to follow. And so if you work for an employer where you're one of three employees there may not be a formal grievance procedure or maybe you don't really know what it is or maybe you aren't sure how to pursue it or maybe you have started pursuing it and then you felt like I don't really think that my employer is participating in this in good faith or it's not gonna get me anywhere. And so to be able to take it to an outside enforcement agency without that working against you later on down the road, that is not necessarily evidence that you didn't do everything that you could to try to fix the situation. Oftentimes someone may have done everything that they reasonably could and that did not include pursuing this internal process. So that seems like an important change. That another one is that this bill does is not requiring people to come up with a comparable employee who was treated differently. This is just a completely insurmountable hurdle in, I don't know the numbers, but I would imagine in most cases, particularly when you're dealing with small employers where there isn't anybody else who was in a similar situation to you but was treated differently. And so if you're required to come up with an example of so-and-so got to take time off to do something and I wasn't allowed to or so-and-so was, I can't think of good examples, but there just often isn't gonna be anybody like that. And even if there is asking an employee to be the one who wouldn't know about that, they wouldn't necessarily even know. They don't, and it's not reasonable to expect them to find that out or be able to find that out, particularly when you've got people's privacy to consider. And so this is also a good obstacle to remove to help make it easier for people just to look at the facts of the case, what actually happened to this person and make a decision based on that. And then the last really kind of the really meaty part of this bill is removing that requirement for something to be severe and pervasive. And so this is a really, really, really high standard and representative Kalaki, you asked how it is defined and it's not, there is no black and white definition, but it has been held by the courts as an extremely high standard. And so there have been many cases where something really terrible happened, but it only happened once or twice. And so it's not considered severe or pervasive. And this really ignores the reality of what people are experiencing when they're experiencing harassment at work, that it can be sometimes that... We've heard some horror stories about things that people have been subjected to at work and it doesn't have to happen every day for somebody to do something really disgusting. And it just can happen once and it will make you feel like I can't possibly continue working with this person or working here and there's no reason why anyone should be subjected to that. It also ignores the kind of harassment that is kind of the thousands tiny cuts that can happen over time, the small slights, the microaggressions, the little comments, the kind of snide remarks that taken one on one are any individual, one of them might not seem like it's severe or pervasive, might not seem like it's that big a deal, but over time and within the culture that you're just sort of living with this all the time can definitely create a hostile work environment that people should not again be subjected to. And so the other thing that having such a high standard does is it kind of takes away a little bit of the incentive for employers to fix the problem as you were talking about with age 320 that we really wanna do whatever we can to encourage employers to create and maintain a safe and healthy work environment and to address and fix any problems that do arise. But with such a high standard, employers are not as obligated to eliminate all forms of harassment necessarily or some may perceive it that way. So I will stop there and I'm happy to take any questions if you have them. Representative Grano, a quick question. Yes, please. Good to see you, Kerry. The section that you spoke about in Comparable Treatment, are these complaints held in confidence so that it would be impossible for another employee, especially in a larger workplace that they would actually even know whether or not someone was being treated equally? Yeah, that's absolutely true in many cases that there would simply be no way for somebody to know and no way for them to reasonably be able to find it out if they wanted to or needed to. Thank you. Great, thank you, Kerry. Thank you. Let's move right to Julio Thompson. Welcome back. There you go. Good morning. So again, for the record, Julio Thompson, Director of Civil Rights Unit, Attorney General's Office. I think I might start off just by providing a little context about this type of harassment, hostile work environment, harassment, where that came from, where severe, pervasive came from. And then I think it'll be informative to see what this bill tries to do. And one of the things it tries to do is sort of unhitch Vermont law to federal law, which has become increasingly more demanding of discrimination victims and the standard for proving a case under the Parallel Federal Law Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 because Vermont's Fair Employment Practices Act, again, that the acronym is FIPO, was based off of the Title VII. There's longstanding precedent in Vermont saying that in interpreting how the Vermont law is to be applied, we looked to federal precedent and that could be a precedent from the US Supreme Court for different federal courts. And so severe, pervasive has entered into Vermont law actually not through the language of FIPO. If you look at the existing FIPO statute, which is section 495B of Title XXI, it actually doesn't mention severe or pervasive at all. But as it's been interpreted by the Vermont Supreme Court again, because the law parallels Title VII and Title VII law imposes that standard. And so the Vermont Supreme Court has said, well, we presume that Vermont also intended to have that standard since you basically more or less copied Title VII into Vermont law. So where did it begin? Before 1996, there was no such thing called sexual harassment under Title VII for the first 32 years of Title VII. Courts interpreted discrimination just to mean either job opportunities or the terms of employment, whether you had a certain position in the company or had the ability to get a certain job or what your pay was, whether you were eligible for bonuses and so forth. It was only what the court called tangible discrimination or economic discrimination. And then that changed really is a part of a remarkably difficult case that came before the Supreme Court. And I mean, difficult in terms of terrible facts. It's a case called Meritor Savings Bank versus Vincent. Michelle Vincent was a 19-year-old African-American bank teller in Washington, D.C. who endured about a three-year campaign of sexual harassment by a vice president who preyed on her sexually. Sexual intercourse dozens of times, inappropriate touching, racial and sexualized comments. And she sought relief in the courts after she was fired for complaining. She was falsely accused of abusing sick leave. So she had a retaliation and a discrimination case. And it was the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time recognizing, looking back at the history of Title VII, that discrimination is not only in terms of the size of your paycheck or what kind of office you get, but just the environment you live in. And that's really where hostile work environment came from. So that's where the doctrine came from. And because Vermont's law parallels Title VII, when cases arise in Vermont, the Vermont Supreme Court uses some of that language that was used in the Meritor Savings, the Vincent case. And one line in the court decision says that to count as a violation of Title VII, that the conduct needs to be sufficiently severe or pervasive, not anti-pervasive, or either one, so as to fundamentally alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive work environment. Because that standard was not articulated by Congress or by a legislature, we just had that one decision, it's kind of a common law that then built up in interpreting the Supreme Court's language. And so that's how the doctrine really evolved. And again, because when Vermont many years ago enacted language parallel to Title VII, again, it sort of hitched its wagon a little bit to how federal courts were interpreting the federal law because of the similarities. And with this bill, one thing would do, it would unhitch it to some extent and it proposes to have Vermont create its own definition that I think would be a different standard in federal law and not be as dependent on what courts in other parts of the country or the Supreme Court is going to do. So that's sort of the background of it. The other background about this bill, I think that hasn't been mentioned or at least I may have missed it, was that Vermont isn't the first jurisdiction that's considering changing the standard and dropping the severe or pervasive standard that we got from the Vincent case. In 2019, the New York State Assembly amended its version of SIPA to include many of the provisions that we see here. So many of the provisions in this bill are identical to those that were enacted and signed into law in August of 2019. And furthermore, the New York law, the 2019 New York law was based essentially on a 20, I'm sorry, a 2005 ordinance for New York City. So New York City for just for employment in the city had an ordinance which dropped the severe pervasive requirement and had many of the provisions, not all but many of the provisions that are in age 329. And when we look to what does the language mean, we do have about 15 years of application in New York City or a little bit more than that. And there are a handful of decisions out of New York that address whether or not, or whether to what extent the standard has changed. And there are some provisions here in the bill that we in the Civil Rights Unit are not familiar with. And one thing that we've done to get a better understanding as to how some provisions would apply in practice is we reached out to our state counterpart for New York, the New York State Commission on Human Rights and asked for an opportunity to communicate with them to see how some of this language actually applies in practice. I think that would be a better way than for us to just offer hypotheticals or imagine how it would actually apply. We haven't had that opportunity to connect but I think we'll be able to do that shortly. And if later on if there's other hearings on this bill we'd be happy to provide an update or provide additional information either to Damien or to the committee as you request. I think so there are a couple of provisions of the bill. For example, I'll just flag a couple that we're still seeking clarification on. For example, on the issue about the employee's decision not to pursue an internal grievance complaint or other remedial process. It's not clear to us whether that means that an employee's failure to make a complaint has any bearing on whether the employer is liable or whether it means that the employer still has to be a notice of the conduct in order to be liable but the employee doesn't have to go through the entire investigation process. We're not really sure about that. Under existing law in Vermont in title seven and all 50 states really that have a people law when you have harassment by a coworker or it could be by a third party, someone who has access to the employer's grounds or it could be a diner at a restaurant he's harassing wheat staff. The general standard is that the employer is not liable for the conduct of the third party or the non-management employee unless they are one aware of the harassment and two they fail to take prompt remedial action and that's the standard. So if the employer doesn't have a, never witnessed the harassment and didn't receive a complaint under existing law the employer can't be liable. It's not clear to us whether there are several ways to read the language in this bill which was taken from the New York law about what pursuing an internal complaint process means. So I think we'll just have to press a pause button and just get a better sense of what that means but that's one of the issues that we're seeking clarification on. Another one is that's been raised already for what that we're still examining is a language that says that you won't be able to or you're not gonna be required to show what the lawyers call a comparator which is that somebody you have to compare yourself to another employee to see whether there's a violation of FIPA so there are different types of discrimination complaints and it's not clear to us right now whether this applies to all of them or only cases where an employer is intentionally treating mistreating an employee. For example, inside of FIPA in the same statute there is basically an equal pay provision that by definition says that you have a claim for an equal pay violation. If you are being paid less then another employee of a different gender who's doing substantially the same work. So an essential element of an equal pay case is that you can point to someone who is not your gender is essentially doing the same work but getting more money or are higher benefits. But this provision doesn't carve out equal pay so we're not clear what the impact is for an equal pay claim and then there's a second type of discrimination which is again, sorry for the lawyer's jargon but I just wanna state it for the record it's called disparate or unequal impact and that discrimination is essentially a rule where there's no evidence that it was maliciously adopted but it has a disproportionate impact on a protected category. For example, it used to be not that long ago that law enforcement agencies or fire departments would have certain physical requirements to become a law enforcement officer or a firefighter that had the effect of screening out women disproportionately and those came under legal challenge and the court said, well, you really have to demonstrate that those requirements are actually necessary to do the job, that they're closely connected to do the job and some of the requirements are and some of the requirements weren't and the ones that weren't were tossed out by the courts because they had that screening effect of blocking or women who were trying to seek a career in those occupations. So for a disparate impact theory, in order to allege the theory, you have to show that you and other people like you that you know, other women, if it's a claim brought by a woman or other people of color, if it's a racial claim, you have to show that that rule not only screens you out but screens out kind of a class of people and so it's not clear whether when you're saying in this bill that you're not required to demonstrate, compare your treatment to someone else, that's no longer necessary. We just, there may be the language that's needed just to make sure that you're not inadvertently disposing of that legal theory, which is an important legal theory that I think Vermont has had since it enacted FIPA. I'm gonna stop there. Those are just, again, we're pursuing, we're kind of looking at this a little bit more closely and trying to get some input from New York State Commission on Human Rights on some of that. So I think I'll just stop for now and be happy to answer your questions. No, thank you. And there is, I mean, again, we'll get into the details of the language with Damien at another walkthrough. Representative Parsons, quick question for Peruleo. Yes, thank you, Peruleo. Just as you were talking about how it actually plays out when these are enacted, you kind of brought up one of the exact things that jumped out at me when I was first reading through this. And I'll just throw out a possibility here since we're also, I think, extending the time where this can happen, where you can bring a claim. I just jumped out to me just a scenario where a person leaves an employer, the person B who was harassing the other person, which now we've set the bar much, much lower, actually is fired. And that person still bring a claim against an employer that had no idea of an employee who doesn't work there anymore. Well, so the existing rule is that under FIPA, you have six years to bring a claim for economic damages. So a person has up to six years to file, and the statute of limitations is just a file that can point. So for many years, more than 25 years now, it's been established that the statute of limitations for seeking economic damages like lost wages is six years. But for seeking other types of injuries like emotional distress, physical injuries, reputational damage, that is not necessarily lost wages. But that's why we have a law of defamation, for example, because that's viewed as a personal injury. That is a shorter statute of limitation. So in the example that you're using, if the person on, you know, they fought, you know, five years, 364 files of lawsuit for economic damages, there's going to be a case against the employer already under existing law. But the issue of damages is limited only to lost wages. The remedies here for, again, emotional distress or physical injuries are just not recoverable. So that's under your example, it's just that the employers already have a pretty long window for cases. And I just just point out that Vermont generally has a six year statute of limitations for economic damages. So that's true for breach of contract, many types of breach of contract cases as well. All right. Thank you, Julio. Let's move on to our next witness here. Which is Falco Schilling. Falco, welcome. This is the first time, well, it's the first time for everybody this year. I hope you could just introduce yourself and tell us where you are and what's your thoughts on this bill? Thank you so much and good morning, everyone. My name is Falco Schilling. I'm the Advocacy Director for the ACLU of Vermont and really appreciate the opportunity to testify to the committee. This is my first testimony of the 2022 session and very glad to be sharing it with you all. So I appreciate the witnesses you've had come before me and I think they've done a lot of really good work laying the groundwork around what this bill is and what it does. In particular, Kerry Brown's testimony will seem pretty, will mirror pretty closely what I have to say on this bill as well. But high level, the ACLU of Vermont really supports the intent behind this legislation, which is to remove unnecessary barriers for victims of harassment and discrimination when they're bringing legitimate claims. And so as you've heard, there's kind of three main components to this bill. One is removing the severe pervasive standard. The other is changing the statute of limitations. And then the third is removing procedural barriers that might exist for folks bringing claims such as trying to have filed an internal grievance or to show someone who is similarly situated or someone who faced a similar or the same pattern of harassment discrimination. So starting with the severe and pervasive standard, I think you've heard from Kerry and then also Damien alluded to this, why this is a concern as jurisprudence has evolved around the country. We have seen some instances where this has barred some legitimate claims of what we view as legitimate claims of harassment and discrimination because these incidents were one-off incidents and therefore were not found to be severe and pervasive. And we've seen this evolve different jurisdictions across the country have treated this differently. There's instances, especially in the sexual harassment area where for instance, one instance of groping or one instance of harmful and offensive touching might not be considered severe and pervasive because it happened one time but that does not diminish the impact of that action. So we're supportive of changing that standard in line with what has been done in New York and think that there is case law to look at there and would support that change under the law. Also, we support extending the statute of limitations to six years for all claims. We had, I'm not gonna dive into that too much just because you've heard a pretty helpful discussion of that before, but there's a number of reasons why someone might not bring a claim within three years in those individual circumstances and if they have a legitimate claim for harassment and discrimination, we think it's appropriate to set that statute of limitations at six years moving forward. And then finally speaking to the procedural barriers that are being removed in this bill and making it clear that someone must not have pursued an internal grievance process. Once again, Kerry spoke pretty well to this about why that could be a concern because that sometimes might involve someone trying to bring a claim that could then incite more retaliation and harassment within the workplace. So we do not think that that needs to be determinative of a claim. It's something that would be that history would be considered by court within that claim and how that was handled, but we do not think that should be determinative. And similarly, being able to show that someone was harassed in a similar way, I think the courts can look at the pattern and practice within the organization, but a particular concern is if someone has individual characteristics, which might be singling them out for this discrimination within an organization, if someone is unique within an organization that has what is in some ways inciting the harassment or discrimination, we could see where that they might not be able to point to someone else who had experienced the same conduct or they might also not know about it as other folks have brought up. So I think high level, we say we're supportive of this legislation and the goals of it. We would be happy to entertain if the committee is looking at amendments and language this and trying to make some tweaks, I'm happy to weigh in on those changes as they come forward, but think that this would be a positive step for Vermont and making sure that victims of harassment and discrimination can have their day in court. So happy to take any questions. Thank you for your testimony. If I'll go in, please, obviously, you're free to come and go as you please, but please stand by just in case we do, again, this is when we start to break down the language, I think we'll have a lot more questions. But right now, this is great. So thank you very much for coming in today. Thank you. Let's move to Bo Yang and bring back Bo Yang from the Human Rights Commission. Welcome back. Thank you. I'm gonna try to share my screen here. So I wanna talk a little bit about the purpose and goals of 396 and also not repeat too much of what Julio, Falco and Kerry have mentioned thus far. The first very important purpose and goal of this bill is clarifying the statute of limitations. And the second one is addressing the fact that so many discrimination cases are lost before they ever see trial or even move forward to litigation. And that's the summary judgment piece of it. And the third very important goal of 329, I'm sorry, is removes a significant barrier to people reporting harassment by adopting a standard that makes behavior that we already consider immoral, unethical, reprehensible harassment to be actionable. So first I wanna talk about the statute of limitations. Again, right now plaintiffs have three or six years. This is not even about extending the statute of limitations. This is really about clarifying that it should be six years regardless of the relief that is being sought. This is important because many plaintiffs who bring harassment claims and discrimination claims are unrepresented and don't understand when they have three years or when they have six years. And my new six years, as Julio mentioned is already available to like a lot of other plaintiffs who bring other causes of actions. So we're just equalizing that for plaintiffs who want to bring claims of discrimination forward. Making sure that the statute of limitations this six years is also important because that's how much time it really takes for someone to process what has happened to them and to seek security and safety in their housing and in their jobs before they can come forward with a discrimination and harassment claim. The current statute of limitations that is three years really doesn't reflect the fact that so many Vermonters have limited opportunities and choices and housing employments in schools. So if you are discriminated against in housing and you've experienced discrimination but you get that housing, you're not going to report that because you wanna maintain that housing. If your landlord continues to harass you you want to still keep that housing. That housing is connected to your job, your transportation, healthcare, that housing is connected to where your kids go to school. If your kids are doing especially well you wanna maintain them in that school. You haven't reached the place of safety and security before you can feel comfortable enough to bring that claim against your housing provider. So making sure that the statute of limitations in six years is really about having a statute of limitations that reflects the realities in Vermont that people don't have a lot of choice with regards to school. They don't have a lot of economic opportunities. They don't have a lot of choice in terms of housing and that we wanna make sure that they have enough time to find that safety and security before they have to bring their claims of discrimination and harassment. The next important goal and purpose of 329 is the summary judgment piece. And for those of you who don't know, summary judgment is when a court makes a decision that one party is entitled to win because the law is just so clear. The judge is taking it away from like the jury. The judge is making a decision before it ever sees the light of day in court. It oftentimes doesn't even get to the discovery stage where we're finding out information. And so that's the idea of summary judgment. We know statistically that plaintiffs who bring discrimination cases lose at a greater rate than any other civil plaintiff. Case precedents can be very strong against a plaintiff. So we have a body of law that has interpreted a very high standard that is already against people who experience discrimination that also sets the stage for subsequent cases to lose before they ever see trial. And that's why it's not appropriate for summary judgment. Summary judgment is also contrary to the entire purpose of anti-discrimination laws which means that they are remedial. The goal of our anti-discrimination laws is to fix something that a very sad and awful history in our country where discrimination is insidious and prevalent. And the goal, if that is the goal of our anti-discrimination laws, we want to make sure that the people who are still experiencing discrimination and harassment today get to at least go to trial. And so if remedial, like if the purpose is remedial then we don't want judges to take that away from jury, from plaintiffs who have experienced discrimination and harassment. And then the third very and probably the most important goal of 329 is addressing the severe and pervasive standard. And so right now, the standard is, is that for anybody to prevail on harassment, they have to show that the harassing conduct rises to the level of severe or pervasive. I won't talk about this case too much. Julio mentioned that this is a Supreme Court decision, Mirator Savings Bank versus Vincent. This was lots of instances of rape, lots of instances of groping, really, really bad in which in a very compelling case against the employer in which the US Supreme Court said, yes, of course, that's harassment and that should be included in discrimination. Another very important case is the 1993 case of Harris v. Forklift that went to the US Supreme Court too. That was Teresa Harris. She sued the president of the company because the president had insulted her on her gender, targeted her with many, many instances of sexual innuendo. The lower court had dismissed her case and concluded that what happened to her was not offensive and it was not so severe as to seriously, psychologically affect her well-being. To appeal that all the way to the US Supreme Court, Justice O'Connor clarified that harassment may satisfy severe or pervasive even when it does not seriously affect the victim's psychological well-being. So we're not looking here for proof that someone was psychologically worse off in order to hold an employer liable for harassment. But this is important. Despite those two US Supreme Court cases, the US Supreme Court also acknowledged there's no test, there's no mathematical precise test or assessment to determine what is severe or pervasive, what actually meets that bar. The result of that is that there are cases all across the country that have inconsistently applied severe or pervasive. There is almost like very little uniformity. When there is some uniformity in a circuit, it almost always favors, disfavors the complaint. Complain it, the plaintiff. That clear precedence is almost always against the defendant. And I wanna talk a little bit about what this looks like across the country. So very pervasive in the fifth circuit. So for a year, Sonya Barnett supervisor, and before I do this, I just wanted to clarify that some of the instances I will be summarizing are pretty awful and traumatic. And so I just wanted to put that caveat out there. Okay, so for a year, Sonya Barnett supervisor layered at her, touched her in sexually inappropriate and unwelcome ways, allegedly actively intimidated her after she complained of actions by loitering outside the building where our office was located. The court said, no, no, that's not severe or pervasive cause it did not destroy her ability to succeed in the working environment. The court in Barnett's case actually relied on a previous case that was brought by Ladonna Hockman. And Hockman had alleged that over a year and a half, her coworker made comments about her body, slapped her on the behind, grabbed or brushed her breasts and behind, tried to kiss her, asked her to come into the office early so they could be alone. The court had found in that case, well, that's not severe or pervasive either. So that's not harassment. Another case out of the fifth circuit involves Deborah Jean Shepherd who had survived harassing behavior for over a period of two years that was perpetrated by a coworker. Behavior that included the coworker looking down her clothing, making sexually suggestive comments, including your elbows are the same color as your nipples, you have big thighs, the harasser putting his, patting his lap and saying, here's your seat. While the plaintiff was looking for a seat in the meeting and then also included unwanted touching. Again, that court said that's not harassment. That didn't impact the terms and conditions of your job. In the 11th circuit, the case of Gupta versus Florida Board of Regents, the plaintiff Gupta, she was a female associate professor. She was harassed by the male department coordinator and chairman of the search committee for a tenured position that she was applying for for about a six to seven month period. The harassment included comments such as, I can look at you and I can tell you are innocent and don't have much sexual experience, calling her frequently at night, asking her questions, are you in bed yet? Are you talking to your boyfriend, placing his hand on her inner thigh, touching her ring and bracelet, lifting up the hem of her dress and asking, what kind of material is this? The court decided that Gupta saying that it, the court decided against Gupta and said that if they had found in favor of Gupta, it would lower the bar of Title VII to punish just bothersome and uncomfortable conduct. The case of Gupta was then used to uphold harassing behavior in Mitchell versus Pope. The plaintiff reported that for four years, her supervisor subjected her to 16 separate incidents of harassment. The court of appeals affirmed a grant of summary judgment against the plaintiff. That means the plaintiff lost before she ever got her chance to go to trial in front of a jury. The court said, well, that's not frequent enough. Again here, lack of clarity around what is sufficiently severe and how many times this harassment had to occur before it is sufficiently pervasive. In the Fourth Circuit, we have the case of Montana over the course of one year. The plaintiff's coworkers referred to Hispanic patients as Mexicans, members of MS-13, complained that these Latino people keep crossing the river, sought to deny Hispanic patient and worker's compensation benefits, unreasonably questioned Hispanic patients about their immigration status, insinuated that Hispanics come to America to receive government benefits. In addition to the plaintiff's supervisor came to work on his day off, so he could stare at her breast after she underwent cosmetic surgery. Her coworkers told her that her breast looked nice. A coworker told that he heard she received a gift that her husband likes and coworkers informed others were spreading rumors about her breast. The Virginia court found that sex and race-based harassment conduct did not meet that standard of severe or pervasive. Virginia legislature then responded to that in a bill that was introduced last year, but unfortunately did not see the light of day for other reasons. But what that bill did was try to change the way that courts were looking at severe or pervasive. And it included language that I think is really important for us to think about and consider too. It said that a determination shall be made on the basis of the record as a whole. We're looking at the totality of the circumstances and that even a single incident may actually constitute workplace harassment. This is important because severe or pervasive doesn't clarify how bad something has to be or how often or frequent something has to occur before it meets that standard. Incidents that may be workplace harassment shall be considered in the aggregate and it identifies nine factors for consideration and then it sets out sort of a definition of what conduct in the workplace what that exceptions to that. That it's regardless of whether a complaining party is the individual being harassed, that the complaining party participated or submitted to that, that the conduct is also experienced by others outside the protected class, et cetera, et cetera. Severe or pervasive in the ninth circuit, this was something that I think that was mentioned by Falco. The case of Brooks versus city of San Mateo, that this was a single incident where one employee groped another by touching her stomach and forcing his hand underneath her bra to grow her breast. The court said that's not sexual harassment because that was only an isolated incident. California then said, the legislation in California is that we have to respond to that, especially in light of the Me Too movement. California clarifies the severe pervasive standard and says, look, one time can be bad enough. People deserve their day in court. The California legislature affirms Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's concurring opinion in Harris versus Forklift Systems and says where she says and she holds that the plaintiff need not prove that his or her tangible productivity has declined as a result of the harassment. It suffices to prove that a reasonable person subjected to the discriminatory conduct was fined as the plaintiff did that it's so altered their job conditions as to make it more difficult to do the job. Key here is that we're not looking to see whether the student got a D instead of an A, whether the bad evaluation occurred instead of a good evaluation. We're saying that sometimes people can still get A's in the classroom, but it was harder for them to earn that because of the harassment. We're saying that sometimes someone can still perform their jobs, but it was significantly more difficult for them to do that. That those claims are still cognizable even if the outcome of their work product didn't necessarily suffer. And California says that the existence of the hostile work environment depends upon the totality of the circumstances. Harassment cases are rarely appropriate for disposition on summary judgment. Again, this is like 329 right now. New York City passes the Restoration Act. Recently, the New York State did as well. And again here, it actually got rid of severe impervious entirely. It says that the analysis must be guided by the need to make sure that discrimination plays no role. This is a remedial statute that we have enacted to fix discrimination. And so the analysis that courts do must be in that context. And lastly, the severe pervasive doctrine by effectively treating as actionable only a small set of workplace actions that demean women and members of other protected classes is actually contradicted by this act that the discrimination violations are per se serious injuries. Okay, what is severe or pervasive look like in Vermont? This is a little bit of history for us. There was a court that said, the Vermont Supreme Court said in a school harassment case, that not only is harassment severe or pervasive, harassment in schools actually must be severe, pervasive and objectively offensive. So the Vermont Supreme Court in interpreting all of that precedence actually changed the severe pervasive standard to now required that something be severe, pervasive and objectively offensive, making it much harder for students to come forward with their harassment claims and then to prevail. This meant that in the case of Ellen versus the University of Vermont, a student who was raped and had reported that rape to staff could not prevail. But I wanna clarify that she actually lost on administrative grounds, but it wasn't before the court stated that isolated incidents of misconduct ordinarily are not pervasive in nature and thus will not support an action. So the Vermont Supreme Court said, yes, you were raped, but it wasn't pervasive. And it held that nothing in the instant complaint would necessarily lead the responding University staff to be queued to sexual harassment. This is suggesting that just because we hear of rape doesn't mean we know or understand that rape is harassment, okay? This body, the Vermont legislature clarified that no, it's not and, it is or, it's severe or not, it's severe or pervasive, not severe and pervasive. Today, the people of Vermont is asking the legislature to now revisit and reexamine the severe pervasive standard because it is unclear, it is inconsistently applied. It sets an unreasonably high burden for plaintiffs. Plaintiffs lose before litigation has even started. The severe pervasive standard has also left many women of color, many people who with intersectional identities are particularly vulnerable to harassment and judges do not understand how to consider the brutality of the circumstances when they exist in that intersectionality place. So for example, if you have a woman of color who reports that a coworker called her the N word a few times and then another, the same coworker called her a CUNT or BITCH a few times, racial slurs and gender slurs. The court looks at those things as if they are separate. The court says, well, that's just a few times, a few statements that probably doesn't get us to severe. So you lose on race. And by the way, that's also just a few comments you also lose on gender discrimination. And so this bill would actually force courts to look at the totality of the circumstances and it reflects the fact that women of color and other people who exist in that space where they have intersecting identities, it would capture cases that involve them. I know I went through that really fast, but I do want to say that, and I apologize that my PowerPoint keeps saying 396. This was a late night PowerPoint that I was putting together, 329 obviously. But I think that it would be important for us to visit this bill and potentially remove the word substantially in performance from the bill. I want to go back to what I mentioned and what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had found in her concoing opinion in the forklift case is that we're not looking to see whether someone has failed at their job before we find that harassment has occurred. We're not looking to see if the student got an F and flunked out and left school before we hold the school liable or accountable for the harassment that the student has experienced. And I would say that of all the bills that have been introduced and potentially passed across the country, that perhaps Virginia's bill is the most forward-thinking and thoughtful. And so I would also suggest that perhaps we adopt language from the Virginia bill, which again is a determination shall be made on the basis of the record as a whole, where a single incident may be enough. We're looking at everything in the aggregate and that there may be some, these are some of the factors that we should consider when we're looking at harassment and discrimination cases. This is going to capture women of color and people in those intersectionality. In closing, our laws lead women, people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ people out in the cold. There is very little deterrent to our harassment. Whether we like it or not, employers, housing providers, schools rely on the law to dictate what they will investigate. They rely on the law to dictate what they will correct and where their resources will go for prevention. They rely on the severe pervasive standard to govern their behavior. It is incumbent upon this body to check and balance the judicial branch when statutory interpretations run contrary to the intent, the purpose and the remedial nature of the law. We have to have laws that reflect the morals and values of a just, free and equal society. So me on behalf of the Human Rights Commission encourage you to pass 329. Thank you. Great, thank you, Boer. We have, coming up next, we have Jessica Hyman from CDOEO and I just want to, just to make a time check, it's 11.42. We'll do another time check at noon. There are a number of witnesses that are still on our list and I wanna make sure we, if we can't get to you before noon that we can reschedule you in and I apologize for packing in this morning but let's go to Jessica right now. Welcome. Thank you so much, Chair Stevens and thank you to you and the rest of the committee for inviting me here today. So I'm Jess Hyman, I'm the Associate Director of Housing Advocacy Programs at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. So for those of you who may not know, CDOEO is one of the state's five community action agencies and our programs address fundamental issues of economic, social, environmental and racial justice and we work with people to achieve economic independence and our statewide Housing Advocacy Programs provide education and support and advocacy and technical assistance and referrals for people and organizations throughout the state. The Housing Advocacy Team serves thousands of renters, mobile home residents and people experiencing discrimination each year. We also partner with housing and service providers, municipal officials and other organizations to promote inclusive affordable housing for all. And of course, these services are all grounded in the belief that housing is a basic human right and that everyone deserves equitable access to securing and maintaining their homes free from discrimination. So other speakers today have addressed the employment provisions of H329 which constitute the bulk of this bill but I'm gonna be talking specifically about the housing provision and the important role that this bill can play in ensuring that all Vermonters and especially those who are traditionally subject to housing discrimination and exclusion making sure that everyone has access to safe and stable homes. So in the face of this ongoing housing crisis we have here in Vermont, which we're all very familiar with, there simply aren't enough homes for people at all income levels and especially for those of lower income and for the most vulnerable in our communities. And as we begin, I hate just, it's so hard to say this a third year of the pandemic because of this safety and stability in our homes is of paramount importance. And every day on our Vermont tenants hotline and our fair housing and mobile home outreach work and through our community action agency, we hear from people who are living in substandard conditions with leaks, mold, lack of heat, et cetera. We also hear from people who are tolerating, putting up with discrimination and harassment from neighbors and also from the housing providers themselves very people who they're depending on to keep their homes and often fear of retaliation and lack and confidence in the process make it really difficult for people to take action and with the bar for severe and pervasive being set so high as Bohr explained as and other speakers have explained as well. There's a big gap in what people are experiencing and the remedies that they can pursue under existing law. So they're existing of course Vermont and federal fair housing law explicitly prohibit discrimination and harassment for people in protected classes but that really isn't enough. Whether the harassment is ongoing or just once that can be significantly damaging to people. And making it difficult for them to live comfortably in their homes. And so even barrages of microaggressions might not count as being severe or pervasive and it makes it very hard to enforce. And so just a little bit of an example of what we see. So we recently completed a statewide community housing discrimination survey that we developed in partnership with Human Rights Commission. And one of the things that we found which was not altogether surprising although the numbers were surprising was that the overwhelming majority of people who had experienced housing discrimination and harassment didn't report the incident at all or file a formal fair housing complaint. And nearly three quarters of those people said that they did not think reporting would make a difference. And half of them said they didn't know where to report it. And a third said they were afraid of retaliation. I know that doesn't add up to a hundred. People responded and had multiple responses to that same question. And so that really shows that we have a lot of work to do to ensure that people who are experiencing this harassment and discrimination know how to take action and then also feel confident in the supports and remedies available to them. And this bill will go a long way towards that. So by establishing that harassment doesn't need to be severe and pervasive. It increases the ability of our enforcement partners to take action and brings more justice to people who are experiencing discrimination or harassment. And then of course, the longer statute of limitations helps reduce one of the other barriers to reporting and enforcing housing harassment issues. You know, often, as Bo said, you know, the first priority for someone is to get themselves and their families into a secure and stable home. And they may not have the ability to file, to report and file a claim in the moment and that longer statute of limitations would make sure that they have some flexibility in time. So, you know, CVO fully supports this bill and I really applaud this committee's efforts to better protect all Vermonters from discrimination and harassment as well as your broader efforts to increase affordable inclusive housing for everyone. So thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Jess. And for all the witnesses who have provided us with testimony so far today, if you have electronic copies that we can post on our website, that would be very helpful. Let's next go to Sarah Robinson. Sarah, welcome. Thank you so much. And thanks for having me for the record. I'm Sarah Robinson, Deputy Director of the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. I think this may be the first time this biennium that I'm with this committee. So it's wonderful to be with you. And just by way of a little bit of background, the Vermont Network represents 15 member organizations throughout the state, which provide advocacy and support to victims of domestic and sexual violence. And together, these organizations serve every town in Vermont. And just to give you a sense, in 2021, our member organizations answered over 21,000 hotline calls from people experiencing domestic or sexual violence, which was a 15% increase over 2020. The Vermont Network works on a range of issues related to sexual and domestic violence, including sexual harassment. And we do this because we know that the term sexual violence encompasses a range of behaviors from sexual assault to exploitation, voyeurism, and sexual harassment. And all of these behaviors involve unwanted sexual conduct, whether that be physical, verbal, or otherwise. Experiencing sexual violence of any form has major impacts on the lives of survivors. And as you've heard from other witnesses today, workplace sexual harassment is common, but rarely reported. Research indicates that 60% of women say they have experienced unwanted sexual attention, sexual coercion, sexually crude conduct, or sexist comments in the workplace. And in some industries, more than nine in 10 women say that they have been sexually harassed. Despite this, over 85% of people who experience sexual harassment never file a formal legal charge and approximately 70% of employees never complain internally either. The impacts of sexual harassment are multiplied for individuals experiencing other marginalization based on race or immigration status and or those who are members of multiple protected classes. The network strongly supports the purpose of H329. And under current law, the burdens are so high that there are often significant barriers to bringing forth legitimate claims of harassment to be heard, as you've heard from other witnesses today. Removing the severe and pervasive standard for sexual harassment, as well as not requiring the existence of a comparative employee are important reforms. Essentially, and our member programs report this when they are working with survivors and referring them to legal counsel. The severe and pervasive standard prevents some legitimate instances of harassment from not even being brought forth at all. And not requiring an employee to fully complete a complaint or internal grievance process is likewise important. In small organizations or companies, these internal complaint or grievance processes may exacerbate the harassment that individuals experience or require employees to complain directly to their harasser. So it's important not to require that these processes need to be fully exhausted. The network is also supportive of the effort to establish a uniform six-year statute of limitations on all claims, not just for economic damages. And you are likely aware that in recent years, the General Assembly has contemplated and passed expansions of civil statutes of limitations on claims related to sexual abuse. And that's because it can take time for individuals to recognize abuse or harassment as such and to recognize the injury that resulted from that harassment. And as Bo Yang from the Human Rights Commission mentioned, bringing forth these complaints often pose a significant risk to plaintiffs and it can take years for them to be secure enough financially or otherwise to bring a claim forward. And as we have learned from more recent statute of limitation expansions, these have not led to an increase in any kind of spurious claims in Vermont, but instead have allowed individuals to come forward on a much more realistic timeline. So that's it for me. Thank you for your attention to this important issue and we'd be happy to consider any amendments that might be brought forth to the bill. Great, thank you, Amy. We'll make sure that when we take up this bill, moving forward, we'll make sure everybody knows when we're working on it. Brenda, welcome. You're muted. I'm in trouble with the controls. Thank you, Representative and Chairman. Thanks for the invite here. Ron just sent me a note and asked if I wanted to put this up until tomorrow. I don't know if you were made aware of that, but I certainly don't wanna drag this out. Well, I wanna make sure that you have room to testify and you're comfortable with your testimony if you can fit us in right now, that would be great. I do apologize for having us run over, but here we are. And if you'd like to take more time and be available tomorrow at one, that's an offer for both for you, for Rachel and for me as well. Thanks. Actually, I was planning on going skiing tomorrow. So this will be fine. And for the record, Brenda Churchill for the LGBTQI Alliance of Vermont as preface to my testimony, I just wanna give credit to my co-l liaison, Keith Gosselin who's been part of this discussion since the mid-80s and provided me with the historical background of our commitment to combat issues of discrimination at all levels in Vermont. I will provide this testimony and document as well for the committee tomorrow. It was 1986 when representatives of Vermont's LGBTQ communities had a first conversation about bias, hate, incidences with the office of attorney general. There were no statistics at that time as there were no laws being broken. When hate or bias crimes, crime statutes were first drafted in the late 1980s, there was no federal legislation to serve as a roadmap and Vermont was at the forefront. We know then that this would be an ongoing conversation and an evolutionary process as this bill demonstrates today. Vermont's LGBTQ plus communities have experienced varying degrees of bias, ranging from persistent bullying by electronic and in-person name calling, vandalism of LGBTQ non-profits, persistent bullying with ineffectual responses in Vermont schools, theft and destruction of LGBTQ symbols. Currently on Mark Pilier's front page forum are multiple discussions of the theft of public rainbow flags. We are reminded of both the frequency and the impact of persistent bullying in Vermont's public schools. Due to the standards accepted in the late 1980s when we didn't fully understand both the types and impact of bias and hate, victims and survivors are often met with a response of there's nothing we can do or it doesn't meet the letter of the law or as Boer pointed out, if it goes that far, summary judgment. When people are choosing to leave their homes, take their children out of schools and may opt to leave Vermont, it may be time for us to review and change Vermont statutes. Our inability to collect meaningful statistics as we don't have crimes being prosecuted doesn't mean there isn't a problem and that Vermonters aren't being negatively impacted. The result of the Vermont Department of Health, Department of Education Behavioral Risk Survey of middle and high school students gives a strikingly different impression of our school environments than what is reported by administrators. Suicide rates and reported thoughts of suicide are on the rise among our student populations. The last four years of hostile federal administration have clearly shown us how social change and moves towards acceptance and inclusion can easily be threatened and still, in this still dark underbelly revealed. You may have heard before from me when I spoke with Governor Scott Attorney General Donovan four years ago that I did not see issues with harassment or discrimination. I can honestly tell you that has now changed. Here's the committee to adopt this bill and send it to the floor and thank you. Any questions? Thank you, Brenda. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming in. Rachel. Thank you, Chair Stevens and members of the committee. I'll try to be quick in our last few minutes before noon. For the record, my name is Rachel Selig. I'm the director of the disability law project at Vermont Legal Aid. We provide legal advice and representation to Vermonters with legal issues related to their disabilities and this includes anti-discrimination work in the context of housing, employment and places of public accommodation, including schools. Vermont Legal Aid's representation expands beyond the disability law project. We also have a housing discrimination law project, a poverty law project and a victims rights project that also address discrimination and harassment. In the past six years, Vermont Legal Aid and our partner organization Legal Services Lawline have received more than 3,000 calls regarding discrimination in education, housing and employment as well as on disability and civil rights, not in those specific sectors and employee rights. As a result of those calls, we've opened 671 cases regarding discrimination. This provides you a rough estimate of the scope of discrimination and harassment complaints received by Vermont Legal Aid. For example, a case about restraint of a child in a school may also be a discrimination case. We also speak to many Vermonters who are harassed in their work and yet may not have merit to seek relief against harassment because of the severe or pervasive standard that Bohr, I think did a terrific job explaining how that's been interpreted across the country. I did provide some written testimony with a few examples of our clients' experiences. And I think if you take a look at those, what you'll see is given the descriptions that she provided of claims that failed, these claims are also likely to fail under that severe and pervasive standard, even though some of these problems include things like calling a person with an intellectual disability retarded more than once. And after this Vermont legislature excised that word from our statutes because it is so demeaning and insulting to people with intellectual disabilities. One of my colleagues who does victims' rights work shared the story of a client who was so traumatised by a coworker grabbing her female body parts just once that she ended up losing the position because of the mental health impacts, but it only happened once. And so the likelihood of success under a severe and pervasive standard is very low. I think this bill makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. The statute of limitations in particular and normalizing that to six years would make a significant difference to legal aid clients and those that don't ever reach out to us. I had a case several years ago where a complaint was made within months of the client losing their job for discriminatory reasons. And the client then waited two years and 11 months from the date of discharge to be able to get an investigation report because there are so many people looking for help from the Office of Civil Rights in the AG's office and from the Human Rights Commission. In that case, the person was seeking as most people are more than one type of relief, not just economic damages. And so that three years statute of limitations applied, leaving us just a few weeks to try and resolve the case or decide to file in court. In addition, others have talked about the need for folks to be safe before they can bring complaints. I actually have a client who is waiting until she graduates before deciding to make a complaint because she feels the situation would be made much worse and having to retell her story would be so re-traumatizing right now that it's just not something that she can do. I would hope that in addition to normalizing a six-year statute of limitations, individuals who seek support or assistance with investigations from the Human Rights Commission or the Office of Attorney General would also have more time to get their complaints in with that six-year statute of limitations. I also wanted to quickly address the internal grievances issue, especially in the school context. We in the Disability Law Project do a lot of work in school-related cases and we see significant problems with schools actually carrying out hazing harassment and bullying investigations when reports are made by students or parents. In one case, an administrator refused to even begin an investigation because the reports made did not meet the level of severe and pervasive. In another case, a parent pushed for an investigation of her biracial daughter with a disability and the building administrator told her that it might mean that her child would be substantiated for harassment or bullying because of how the child had reacted to the treatment that the school had not stopped. These experiences really show the futility for many families of using internal grievance processes. And last, I think others have said as eloquently as I possibly could the need to eliminate the severe or pervasive standard. This is such a high bar that even things like in during five months of encounters with a sexual assailant leading to ongoing trauma and taunting by other peers and missed school may not actually rise to the level of severe and pervasive in order to receive relief. So those are just a few examples of some of what we're seeing at Vermont Legal Aid and some of the reasons that we think that the changes that are proposed here in H329 would make a big difference for Vermonters across the state. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. Committee, it's 12-04. I've reached out to Mia and asked her if she would like to testify tomorrow afternoon at 2.30. She'll confirm that with Ron and she'll work through that. Mia, I'm so sorry we didn't get to you but I want to make sure that we don't rush your testimony and that you're given ample time to present and to be questioned if people have questions for you. Thank you everybody who's been here all morning on these two bills. We are just getting used to taking testimony and this was incredibly informative on these two bills and I look forward to us following up on it. So people who are on the call today, if you're interested in coming back tomorrow at 2.30 where we take this up again, please let Ron know so he can send you a Zoom link if you're interested in following up and being present for continuing testimony on this.