The Protected Class Network brings together and supports groups led by justice-impacted people that are organizing in their communities to designate those with conviction and arrest records as a protected class, joining race, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and other legally protected categories. From the beginning, we’ve viewed local legislation as the first step towards having similar legislation passed in other cities, at the state level, and ultimately by the federal government.
The Protected Class Network
In early 2022, we (Barred Business) worked with the ACLU of Georgia to draft model legislation to amend the City of Atlanta’s Ordinance to include justice-impacted people and created a detailed document—“PROTECTED Campaign: The Next Phase in the Civil Rights Movement”—that laid out the multiple aspects of the campaign. We identified a city council member who championed the Protected Class Legislation—meeting with us to discuss strategy, introducing the legislation in September, and lobbying other council members. We got a sign-off from the Atlanta Legal Department and the support of the Atlanta Human Relations Commission. We did a citywide-push to get community and member support for passage of the legislation by the full City Council. On October 19, justice-impacted people became a protected class in a major U.S. city, with the ordinance passing unanimously on the first vote.
When word got out about our legislative win, impacted people from around the country let us know how personally meaningful it was for them. Some were from well-established BIPOC- and impacted people-led groups with long experience in their communities, while others were from smaller groups that were just starting to build their programs, organizations, and partnerships. We heard them. And in 2023, we began to work with other impacted-led groups to create the Protected Class Network.
Learn more about the Atlanta Protected Class Campaign:
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Former Inmates Now a Protected Class in the City of Atlanta (with video)
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Athens News Matters: Formerly Incarcerated People as a Protected Class (audio interview)
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Atlanta Now Protects People with Criminal Records from Employment Discrimination
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Formerly Incarcerated People Seek Discrimination Protection as “Protected Class
The struggle is long but achievable. We take heart from the successful multi-year Ban the Box campaign, originated by All of Us or None, a grassroots civil and human rights organization fighting for the rights of formerly- and currently-incarcerated people. Their campaign to remove the conviction history check-box from job applications showed us the power of formerly incarcerated activists to change unjust systems.
Our Story
Former inmates now a protected class in city of Atlanta
We call the tens of thousands of major legal roadblocks we face because of our record “permanent punishments,” rather than the frequently used term “collateral consequences.” Like the criminal legal system as a whole (from arrest to reentry), permanent punishments are part of a system that systematically punishes people who are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+ (especially trans), and/or experiencing poverty.
The punishment is not something incidental that “just happens” without officials being unaware of their consequences and their targets. When we were given our sentences or convinced to make a plea deal, no official was legally required to tell us that, while our sentence or probation might end, our punishment would last for many more years and often throughout our lives.