New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams has signed laws that may ban discrimination primarily based on physique dimension by including weight and peak to the listing of protected classes comparable to race, intercourse and faith
FILE — Two girls stand on Aug. 16, 2016, New York. New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams signed a invoice Friday, Could 26, 2023, that may prohibit discrimination primarily based on physique dimension by including weight and peak to the listing of protected classes like race, intercourse and faith. (AP Photograph/Mark Lennihan, File)
The Related Press
NEW YORK — New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams signed laws Friday that may ban discrimination primarily based on physique dimension by including weight and peak to the listing of protected classes comparable to race, intercourse and faith.
“All of us deserve the identical entry to employment, housing and public lodging, no matter our look, and it shouldn’t matter how tall you’re or how a lot you weigh,” stated the mayor, who joined different elected officers in addition to fat-acceptance advocates at a Metropolis Corridor bill-signing ceremony.
Adams, a Democrat who printed a guide about reversing his diabetes via a plant-based weight-reduction plan, stated the ordinance “will assist degree the taking part in discipline for all New Yorkers, create extra inclusive workplaces and dwelling environments, and defend towards discrimination.”
Exemptions below the ordinance, which the town council handed this month, embody instances during which a person’s peak or weight might forestall them from performing important features of a job.
Some enterprise leaders expressed opposition to the laws when it was earlier than the council, arguing that compliance might change into an onerous burden.
“The extent of the influence and value of this laws has not been absolutely thought of,” Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York Metropolis, stated in an announcement.
A number of different U.S. cities have banned discrimination primarily based on weight and bodily look, together with San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin. And laws to ban weight and peak discrimination has been launched in states together with New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Tigress Osborn, the chair of the Nationwide Affiliation to Advance Fats Acceptance, stated New York Metropolis’s weight discrimination ban ought to function a mannequin for the nation and the world.
Osborn stated the town’s adoption of the brand new ordinance “will ripple throughout the globe” and present that “discrimination towards individuals primarily based on their physique dimension is improper and is one thing that we will change.”
The ordinance will take impact in 180 days, on Nov. 22.
