About Cole Civil Rights

Richard W. Cole is a nationally known civil rights attorney, former Assistant Attorney General and Civil Rights Division Chief in the Massachusetts Office of Attorney General. During his 16 years in civil rights leadership positions, he developed and led the office’s innovative civil rights and anti-discrimination litigation, enforcement, and public-policy initiatives.

Cole was National Chair of the Civil Rights Working Group of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), facilitating federal-state civil rights enforcement with the U.S. Department of Justice and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He received NAAG’s prestigious 1994-95 Marvin Award for "outstanding leadership, expertise, and achievement."

Cole is a highly successful and skilled civil rights litigator. He has extensive experience in enforcement, investigation, counseling, and prevention training in K-12 and higher education, law enforcement, health/mental health, and in employment, housing, mortgage lending, banking, and public accommodations discrimination. He has argued successfully before the U.S. Supreme Court.

As partner in the highly regarded private law firm of Stahlin, Bergstresser, and Cole, P.C., Cole successfully represented victims in complex civil rights, discrimination, malpractice,   and personal injury litigation. He was also a managing, staff,  and VISTA attorney in Greater Boston Legal Services.

As a consultant for the United States Information Agency, Cole advised the attorneys general and police and military leadership of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal, as well as those countries’ leading human-rights lawyers and advocates, on appropriate ways to address police misconduct and abuse and how to employ effective civil rights enforcement and advocacy strategies.

Cole was an active member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Commission to Study Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts. The Commssion issued its Final Report, "Equal Justice, Eliminating the Barriers," in September 1994.

Cole is a graduate of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination's certified train-the-trainer programs, "Preventing Harassment in the Workplace," and "Conducting Internal Discrimination Complaint Investigations."

Cole is a member of the Massachusetts bar, the United States District Court of Massachusetts, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. He is a graduate of Boston University   School of Law and George Washington University.

• Trained, counseled and provided technical assistance to many thousands of educators on school safety, school climate, educational equity, race relations, and preventing, recognizing, and responding to bullying, harassment, and hate crimes in schools and in cyberspace.

• Developed and co-chaired the Massachusetts statewide "Safe Schools Initiative" with more than 70 leaders from education, law enforcement, health, prevention, civil rights, and victim assistance to provide the training and technical assistance K-12 schools need to make them safe from harassment, hate crimes, and bullying. See NSBA’s "Leadership Insider." (PDF)

• National co-chair for and contributory author of the acclaimed U.S. Department of Education publication, "Protecting Students from Harassment and Hate Crime- A Guide for Schools." www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/archives/Harassment/

• Lead trial and appellate counsel in Comfort v. Lynn School Committee, 283 F.Supp.2d 328 (D. Mass. 2003), 418 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2005) (en banc), cert. denied, 126 S.Ct. 798 (2005), successfully defending the constitutionality of the student-assignment plan the City of Lynn, Massachusetts used to integrate its schools; established through expert testimony the extensive benefits of integration. PDF  PDF

• Lead author of amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court in October 2006 on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts supporting the constitutionality of the voluntary integration plans of the Seattle and Louisville school districts. PDF

• Spoken on school safety, school climate, harassment and bullying, educational equity, integration, and race relations at conferences and programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, National Academy of Education, state education departments and associations,  American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the National Association of School Resource Officers.                                                       
• Recognized by the Massachusetts Administrators for Special Education (ASE) in 2008 "for his continued and tireless support for . . . quality special education services to Massachusetts students with disabilities," by ASE in 2006 "for exemplary leadership in promoting safe schools," and by the Massachusetts Citizens for Public Schools in 2005, "for longtime commitment to civil rights in education." [return to top]

• Provided legal advice to colleges involving civil rights, discrimination, and affirmative action.

• In private practice, litigated complex university civil rights cases.

• Participated in college hate-crime cases and investigations; provided training and technical assistance to campus police on civil rights, harassment, and hate crimes. [return to top]

• Many years of experience performing police investigations and providing law enforcement technical assistance and training on civil rights, police misconduct, racial profiling, hate crimes, workplace discrimination, internal affairs investigations, and school safety.

• Successfully litigated hate crime and police misconduct cases in court. Participated in and advised state and local police departments, district attorney offices, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in hate-crime and police-misconduct nvestigations.                                     
• For ten years led the Massachusetts Attorney General's statewide Hate Crimes Task Force consisting of more than 100 law enforcement and community leaders from throughout the Commonwealth.

• Spoken on civil rights and hate-crime investigations and enforcement at conferences and programs for the U.S. Department of Justice, National Association of Attorneys General, National Center for Hate Crime Prevention, District Attorneys, National Association of School Resource Officers, Massachusetts Juvenile Police Officers Association, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

• National Co-Chair of the joint federal-state hate-crime training initiative, and a leading author and editor of the U.S. Department of Justice’s publication in 1999 of three hate-crime modules currently used to train state and local law enforcement in the U.S. on hate-crime response and investigations; helped lead DOJ’s national train-the-trainer efforts. [return to top]

• Litigated or supervised retaliation and employment discrimination cases on account of race, color, national origin, ethnicity, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, disability, and age; coauthored amicus briefs in U.S. Supreme Court and Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

• Developed, drafted, and monitored the implementation of model equal employment consent agreements; provided employers extensive technical assistance and training on preventing and responding to harassment, discrimination, and retaliation in employment.

• As Civil Rights Division Chief, negotiated comprehensive equal employment opportunity agreement with the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) and twenty-six of its collective bargaining units, and closely monitored its compliance over seven years. [return to top]

• Supervised or personally litigated more than 150 housing discrimination cases; crafted model housing and mortgage lending consent agreements and monitored their compliance.

• In response to Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s 1992 study, led investigation of mortgage lending industry to promote fair lending; led negotiations with the Massachusetts Bankers Association and lenders resulting in industry-wide reforms and training.

• Supervised successful prosecutions of civil hate-crime enforcement actions to protect tenants and owners of homes from bias-motivated intimidation and violence; trained state, local, and housing police in responding to and investigating hate crimes in housing.

• Presenter at national and regional conferences for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.    
• Received "Open Doors Award" from the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston in 2002, "for his tireless efforts to promote housing access and reduce tensions in our communities." [return to top]