Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission Welcomes Chad Dion Lassiter as Executive Director

Harrisburg, PA – The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission today announced that Chad Dion Lassiter will join the commission as executive director effective May 24.

Lassiter has a Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania, and more than 20 years of experience in the fields of race relations, conflict resolution, mediation, teaching, counseling, research, re-entry, policy and prison reform. For the past seven-plus years, he served as the Executive Director of the Red Cross House with the American Red Cross of Eastern Pennsylvania. Since 2003 he has served as president of Black Men at Penn School of Social Work, Inc, an organization that serves as a conduit between the African American community and the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice.

Lassiter has served as both an adjunct lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006, and a guest lecturer at West Chester University since 2008. His teaching areas include American Racism and Social Work Practice, Gender and Race. Also, he is both an author and a frequent presenter at various workshops and community and school events.

He has worked with a variety of city, state and federally elected and appointed officials, as well as religious and community leaders while engaging in race dialogue and anti-racism training to foster diversity and tolerance in multiple sectors. Lassiter’s work has taken him to Canada, Africa, Israel, Haiti and Norway, where he has worked on issues of racial tension and unrest focusing on tolerance and anti-racism training methods and strategic outcomes.

“We expect great things from Chad as executive director, and we are all really looking forward to working with him,” M. Joel Bolstein, interim chairman of the PHRC said. “As commissioners, we know that when people come to the Commission, they are looking for justice. What’s impressed us the most about Chad is his deep desire to help the Commission bring about justice for all citizens of the commonwealth.”