The Needham Human Rights Committee agreed at its April meeting to add age and citizenship to the town statement of protected classes and to publish the revised statement on the committee’s web page while pursuing formal endorsement by the Select Board.

Committee members said the town’s existing employment EEO statement already lists a broad set of protected categories used in job postings and suggested borrowing that language rather than attempting to enumerate every possible group. Taylor, the committee liaison from town staff, said the town’s job postings include race, age, gender, national origin, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy and veteran status, and recommended using an ‘‘or any other protected class’’ catch-all where appropriate.

Members flagged that the town’s discrimination-complaint form and its web link were not clearly available in the materials they reviewed. One member said a QR code had been circulated during a recent presentation but that the digital complaint form had not been finalized for the public site. The committee asked staff to locate and post the complaint form link alongside the statement so residents can find both the statement and the complaint process in one place.

The committee also discussed the document’s opening paragraph and historical context: members asked that the statement reference the committee’s long history and suggested adding an origin line noting the committee’s establishment in 1995 by the Board of Selectmen.

Next steps: committee members agreed to finalize a small set of edits, post the statement and complaint-form link as soon as practical, and prepare a request that the Select Board consider endorsing the statement at a future meeting.