Buried in Mayor Daniel Lurie’s proposed budget is a quiet but consequential change: eliminating the Department on the Status of Women (DOSW) as a standalone agency and folding it — along with the Human Rights Commission — into a new “Agency on Human Rights.” Under this plan, DOSW’s entire budget would be zeroed out. The Commission on the Status of Women (COSW) would remain in name only, stripped of its infrastructure, autonomy, and dedicated policy agenda. This is more than bureaucratic streamlining. It is an erasure.
For over 30 years, DOSW and COSW have led transformative work in San Francisco: reducing domestic violence and sexual assault, addressing sexual harassment in city government, combating human trafficking, and advancing pay equity, reproductive justice, and gender-inclusive services. COSW also led the city’s pioneering implementation of CEDAW — the United Nations treaty on women’s rights, making San Francisco the first in the world to apply its framework locally. This work has succeeded because it has been focused, resourced, and independent.
In 2002, COSW and DOSW released the justice and courage report responding to the murder of Claire Joyce Tempongko, a Filipina mother who was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in front of her children, after multiple attempts to seek protection from a system that failed her. An interagency panel produced the report that became a national model for coordinated response across police, courts, and service providers. That level of collaboration didn’t happen by accident — it was driven by a department and commission solely dedicated to protecting women and their families.
Mayor Lurie asked departments to reduce budgets by 15 percent to address the city’s deficit. But these proposed cuts go far beyond that. The Human Rights Commission faces a 38 percent reduction — nearly $17 million — bringing its budget down to $28 million. DOSW’s budget, by contrast, would be eliminated. While some staff may continue under the new agency, dissolving DOSW would end the city’s only department focused on gender equity, along with decades of institutional knowledge, community trust, and targeted programs. This is not efficiency. It’s a rollback.
San Francisco voters enshrined COSW in the City Charter in 1994 with more than 70 percent approval. Reorganizing it without public input or a dedicated budget undermines that mandate and sets a dangerous precedent: that voter-approved bodies can be quietly dismantled by administrative fiat.
The issues COSW and DOSW address — gender-based violence, discrimination, reproductive access, and equity for women, girls, and gender-diverse communities — are not optional. They are fundamental to a just city. We urge the Board of Supervisors to reject this proposal. Restore funding for the Department on the Status of Women. Preserve the independence of the commission. Let San Francisco continue to lead — not retreat — on gender equity, especially in these challenging national times.
Caryl Ito, commissioner, COSW, 1989–98; airport commissioner, 1998–2010.
Kathy Johnson, San Francisco Women’s Political Committee (for identification purposes only)
Sharon Johnson, executive director, DOSW, 1989–1994
Sonia Melara, executive director, DOSW, 1995–2001
Dr. Emily Murase, executive director, DOSW, 2004–20; commissioner, 1997–2003.