James McKim

Chair and members of the committee, My name is James McKim, and I am a Goffstown resident, parent, business owner, person of color, and someone who has been involved in civil rights cases investigated by law enforcement and adjudicated in the courts. I share this with you because I know what racism feels like, and I know how hard it is to prove, even when it is happening right in front of you. People sometimes act as if discrimination is always obvious. It is not. Most of the time, it is subtle. It is coded. It is dismissed. It is the look, the comment, the different treatment, the closed door, the sudden hostility, the way you are made to feel like you do not belong. And then, when you try to speak up, you are asked to prove it beyond what any human being should have to prove. You are told to explain the unexplainable. You are told to produce evidence of someone’s inner thoughts, their motive, their hostility — as if the pain itself is not enough. That is why this bill scares me. It introduces the phrase “substantially motivated” without clearly defining what that means. For people who have experienced discrimination because of race, religion, sex, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, or other protected characteristics, vague standards do not create fairness — they create barriers. When the law is unclear, the burden falls on the person who has already been harmed to prove not only that discrimination occurred, but to prove the exact degree of hostility behind it. That is not justice. That is a higher hurdle for people who are already carrying the weight of being targeted. That is why civil rights law exists: to protect people from unequal treatment even when the person doing the harm will not admit their intent. If the standard is raised again, fewer cases will be brought, fewer violations will be addressed, and more people will be left to suffer in silence. That does not just make enforcement harder. It sends a message to people in protected classes that their safety and dignity are negotiable. The message sent to people like me is that even when discrimination happens, we will likely not be able to prove it in the way the law now demands. It makes an already unfair process even harder for the people who are already most likely to be doubted, ignored, or disbelieved. For many of us, that feeling is not theoretical. It is real. When legal protections are narrowed, people notice. They notice in schools, in workplaces, in housing, in public accommodations, and in daily life. They begin to ask whether the law still has their back. This bill will increase fear, not confidence, among people who already face discrimination and exclusion. I want you to understand what that means in real life. It means a person of color who is treated unfairly may be left with nowhere to turn. It means people who already feel unsafe because of gender-biased exclusion, as my wife felt at a past employer, may feel even less protected. It means that instead of strengthening civil rights, the state is making it easier for discrimination to hide behind technical language and harder for ordinary people to get help. This bill narrows protections that are grounded in the New Hampshire Constitution’s promise of equality. Our Constitution should be made to strengthen civil rights, not weaken them. SB 464 moves in the opposite direction by making it harder to enforce those protections in practice. Rights that cannot be effectively enforced are rights on paper only. Please vote no on SB 464. Thank you.