By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Mayor Liz Lempert has appointed the nine people to serve on the recently created civil rights commission, with nearly half of them Princeton University employees and only two male members.
The Princeton Council will vote on the mayor’s choices at the Jan.4 council reorganization meeting, with Councilwoman Jo S. Butler saying Friday she would support the selections.
The commission will consist of Molly Chrein and Afsheen Shamsi, both of whom served on the Princeton Board of Education; Pastor Karen Hernandez-Granzen of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Trenton; Leticia Fraga, an expected candidate for council in 2017 who ran for council in 2016; Donna Tatro, associate chief information officer at Princeton University; Tommy Parker, a mailman at the university; David Campbell, who also works for the university; Susan Fiske, a university professor; and Kiki Jamieson, a former university employee who works for The Fund for New Jersey and had been on the library board of trustees.
Officials side-stepped questions about why there were so many past and current university employees on the commission or why there were so few men.
“We are incredibly fortunate to live in a community with so much expertise combined with a spirit of giving back,” Mayor Lempert said Friday in a text message.
Mayor Lempert has said that bringing back a civil rights commission – one had been in existence until the late 1990s – was an important accomplishment in 2016. The body will have “no special authority,” per the ordinance creating the board. It will not be able to hear complaints of discrimination against police officers or other government employees.
The main roles will be to do informal conflict resolution and education campaigns. The town said the commission would “develop mutual understanding and respect among all racial, religious, cultural and ethnic groups in Princeton and work to prevent discriminatory practices against such groups.”
“I’m excited to have the opportunity to work with such an amazing group of people to bring best practices to our government and to make all residents in our community feel like they belong,” Mayor Lempert said.
