NEW YORK—As this year’s city council legislative session approaches its end, a broad coalition of New York-based human rights groups and local legislators are hoping that a new human rights bill makes the cut.
From the underemployment of black youth, to racial and income disparities in health care; from pervasive residential segregation to voter disenfranchisement in the Asian communities—for these folks, it is painfully evident that our city needs a new means of addressing these persistent problems. The bill, “City Council Introduction 512-A,” also known as the “Human Rights in Government Operations Audit Law,” sets up a system of oversight for instances of discrimination within all branches of the city government. It would replace the existing system, which centers on response to individual complaints, with a “comprehensive and proactive system that involves partnerships between city agencies and community advocates.”
Councilman Bill Perkins, one of the bill’s sponsors, characterized it as, “a demand on our city government to be proactive, to anticipate discrimination before it becomes a legal matter—before it becomes harmful.”
Craig Gurian, Executive Director of the Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York, calls attention to the city’s deeply entrenched segregation. With color-coded charts he showed how the image of a racial and ethnically diverse and inclusive New York is simply untrue. “New York city remains one of the most segregated places in the nation,” said Gurian.
Gurian explained, “segregation [in the city] began with a combination of private acts of discrimination and public policies that fostered and condoned such behavior. Today, the segregated patterns that were created continue, in part, because the city does not engage in the kind of auditing and analysis that Intro 512A would require. That is, a look at whether planning, zoning, development, and tenant preference decisions work to perpetuate or reduce segregation.”
He also pointed to the plight of the city’s disabled. With so many new high rise apartments being built, very few contain a significant amount of handicapped accessible units. He argues that this is impractical on the part of the builders, who could avoid the costs of later retrofitting, by building with the disabled in mind in the first place.
And then there are taxis. According to Gurian, “The city has 100 percent control of the yellow taxi industry—yet more than 99 percent of those cabs remain inaccessible to people with disabilities.”
Supporters of the bill hope that with adequate oversight and input from advocacy and human interest groups these problems will have to be directly addressed. There would be no way left for them to slip underneath the political radar.
When asked of the obstacles facing Intro 512-A, Perkins was quick to point to resistance within the current city government. He said that it is his understanding that Mayor Michael Bloomberg feels the bill is unnecessary, or at the very least, not a priority.
It is certainly not being addressed on the campaign trail, according to Perkins. How else can the bill move forward?
“We are at the end of the legislative season, with very little opportunity left for us to make a decision about this type of legislation,” explained Perkins. “The Speaker [Gifford Miller] is the key person in being able to move this legislation forward in an effective and meaningful way.”
“But frankly,” added Perkins, “the Mayor can do so as well.”
According to Perkins, the bill is currently being redrafted, but he hinted that supporters within the City Council might take measures to force the bill into consideration before the end of the session.
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