Those two prior organizations were:[2][3][4] The staff of the new agency, initially referred to as the "Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity Office," were partially funded through federal CETA funds, and drawn from the City's Human Rights Division—an office that had previously provided staff support to the WCCR and had worked on police-community relations (PCR) issues.
The rest of the Human Rights Division was reassigned to serve the City Manager, directly, on PCR issues.
[4] The official goals of CREEOC were to "eliminate and prevent discrimination, segregation and separation in all places of public accommodations, housing and employment because of race, religion, color, sex, physical handicap, national origin or ancestry, and marital status as authorized by the City Code.
"[5][6] To attain that goal, the CREEOC performed two complementary functions:[5][6] The responsibility of this organization was to carry out the city's adopted policies directed at civil rights and equal employment opportunity.
This office assisted in the drafting and filing of civil rights complaints related to employment, housing and public accommodations.
This act provided enforcement authority for the local civil rights commission in the areas of employment, public accommodations, and housing.
[3][9][13][17][19][20] During the late 1970s, a period of major troubles in police-community relations (including riots with police[21][22])[9][23] - and troubles in both external and internal race relations in local law enforcement agencies (particularly the Wichita Police Department and Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office)[9][24][25] - CREEOC generally stayed on the sidelines.
[31][32] Following the controversy with Rice, the Wichita Board of City Commissioners voted to reduce the CREEOC budget, and ultimately to reorganize the office, and—by 1984—combine it with the Community Grievance Office, to form the Wichita Citizens Rights and Services Division (CRS), and converted the CREEOC board into the Wichita Citizens Rights and Services Board—a purely advisory entity—withdrawing the commissioners' authority to rule on probable cause in civil rights cases, changing the agency's role from "enforcement" to "conciliation."