WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., September 13, 2016 — WLU Professor of Social Work Sheli Bernstein-Goff was reappointed as a member the West Virginia Advisory Committee of the United States Commission on Civil Rights recently. She was first appointed to the Commission in 2013.

Sheli Bernstein-Goff

“It’s a huge honor to be appointed once, let alone twice to the committee,” Bernstein-Goff said. “We are currently finishing the project that we started in 2013, a project that dealt with the mental health community and how it intersects with law enforcement. We’ve looked at how arrests are made, etc. Our goal is to improve the service for all citizens.”

Bernstein-Goff is familiar with both the law enforcement side, having served on first responder teams and disaster response teams, and the mental health world in her role of social service professor.

The advisory committee will next meet in October and will receive a new project assignment at that time, according to Bernstein-Goff.

Bernstein-Goff joined WLU faculty in 2003 and serves as the university’s Institutional Representative to FACDIS (Consortium for Faculty and Course Development In International Studies). She also serves on the Multicultural Education committee and is a faculty senator.

Created by The Civil Rights Act of 1957, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has been reauthorized or extended by Congressional legislation several times; the last reauthorization was in 1994 by the Civil Rights Commission Amendments Act of 1994.

Established as an independent, bipartisan, fact-finding federal agency, its mission is to inform the development of national civil rights policy and enhance enforcement of federal civil rights laws.

The commission studies 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. There are 51 State Advisory Committees composed of citizen volunteers.

For more information on the College of Liberal Arts and its social work program, please click here.

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