United States Commission on Civil Rights

Established as an independent, bipartisan, fact-finding federal agency, our mission is to inform the development of national civil rights policy and enhance enforcement of federal civil rights laws. We pursue this mission by studying alleged deprivations of voting rights and alleged discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice. We play a vital role in advancing civil rights through objective and comprehensive investigation, research, and analysis on issues of fundamental concern to the federal government and the public. Our commissioners, national and regional office staff of civil rights analysts, social scientists, attorneys, administrative personnel, and our volunteer advisory committee members execute our mission in a number of ways. Among them are: - Holding public briefings, issuing press releases, making information publicly available on our web site, and providing a complaint referral service to promote greater public awareness of civil rights issues, protections and enforcement; - Conducting hearings on critically important civil rights issues, including issuing subpoenas for the production of documents and the attendance of witnesses; - Publishing significant studies and reports on a wide range of the civil rights issues, that typically include findings and recommendations, to inform and advise policy-makers; and - Sustaining advisory committee involvement in national program planning to strengthen fact-finding by broadening the scope of the research to include state and local perspectives and data.