As NYC celebrates Irish immigrants, Irish-American and NYC racial justice groups protest NYPD’s role in deporting immigrants of color

PRESS RELEASE

Despite “Sanctuary City”, groups charge that aggressive Broken Windows policing feeds immigrants to ICE – while NYPD avoids targeting white immigrants.

New York – Irish American and NYC racial justice groups protested today at the NYPD Emerald Society’s post-parade party. Protesters demanded that the NYPD stop helping federal ICE agents deport New York’s immigrants by aggressively making arrests for tiny, non-criminal infractions. Groups included Irish Queers, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Community Voices Heard, and SURJ NYC (Showing Up for Racial Justice).

“Broken Windows is a flawed policy that wrongly targets Blacks and Latinos. We call on this administration to end Broken Windows and make New York a true Sanctuary City,” said Claudia Perez, member-leader of Community Voices Heard.

As NYPD officers celebrated their Irish immigrant heritage, picketers carrying signs called them to stop victimizing current-day immigrants. NYPD union boss Ed Mullins (Seargent’s Benevolent Association) confirmed this month that NYPD officers personally want to “help ICE” by targeting immigrants for deportation, and that officers resent city policy that prevents them from performing immigration checks.

“Irish-American police officers shouldn’t forget from what and where they came.  People fleeing for a better life, fighting for their right to exist, and prevailing against tyranny is scratch-deep in their history. It’s the same struggle for immigrant and racial justice that we’re facing now,” said J.F. Mulligan of Irish Queers.

Protesters charged that, despite “Sanctuary City” rules, the NYPD is already driving the deportation of New Yorkers by arresting them for non-criminal Broken Windows offenses. New federal policy directs ICE to deport documented and undocumented immigrants who have been arrested, regardless of the outcome of the arrest.

NYPD arrests for low-level offenses overwhelmingly target communities of color. This biased policing makes immigrants of color particularly unsafe, while leaving white immigrants relatively untouched.

“Our Irish-American families mostly came to the US under desperate circumstances and were treated poorly here,” said Jennifer Hadlockof SURJ NYC.“I’m here to confront the hypocrisy of Irish-American police officers now enforcing the horrible treatment of people of color, including immigrants, through unnecessary arrests that lead to people being deported. It’s blatant white supremacy, we cannot let it go unchallenged.”

Broken Windows mandates arrests, not summonses, for littering, subwaysleeping, jaywalking, panhandling, unlicensed dogs, and other infractions.Thousands of such arrests are made weekly, but do not improve safety, according to a 2016 DOI report.

“We protested the St. Patrick's parade for decades because the Irish community is not the bigoted, hyper-religious cabal the parade portrayed. Neither is the Irish community represented by the racist NYPD, despite the historic connections,” said Mulligan. “Irish resistance against racist authority is the best of our history.”

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Date: March 17, 2017

Contact: (917) 517-3627, irishqueers@gmail.com

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Bittersweet: what's been won, and what has not

Irish Queers are delighted that the parade's ban is ended, and look forward to joining the Irish LGBTQ contingent on Fifth Avenue. We've always held that our struggle is against bigotry, though, and all the celebrating and political fist-bumping is turning that on its head.

The mayor stood yesterday surrounded by Irish Americans and announced that New York City is a beacon of inclusion. It is better now for Irish queers. But in New York City, racist police killings are still the subject of constant protest. Homeless people are being swept off of streets in gentrifying neighborhoods by police cars draped in pink "breast cancer awareness" ribbons, no less. Gentrification is causing deaths and destroying communities literally every minute.

So yes, we successfully pushed the Parade Committee into ending a policy that was embarrassing them. But to paint the city "inclusive" with that small brush is to conveniently forget what's really happening here, and to use Irish LGBTQ people as your tool.

The mayor's press conference showed just how much can be papered over with a victory.

Some claimed the victory was won by putting the kettle on. Decades of protest and pressure didn't do it, just queers and bigots talking lovingly to each other.

A Parade Committee member lauded the end of the ban with deluded, Islamophobic nonsense about how "our Judeo-Christian beliefs" are what ended the ban, and "the West is about inclusion!" No one on the mayor's stage uttered a word of objection. (Update: we've been asked to note that attendees on that stage who objected felt unable to interrupt the Mayor's press conference to say so. The Mayor did not object.)

Nor are we allowed any accounting for the still-sitting members of the parade committee who enthusiastically supported the parade throughout its ban on Irish LGBTQ groups, and dismissed and degraded the protests. But we're supposed to stay grateful and quiet in case we upset the new "unity."

We fought 25 years for this victory. We don't want it misused. The NYC Irish community still has its progressives and it still has its bigots. NYC has its moments of inclusion, and its deep traditions of violent exclusion. We gladly celebrate the end of the parade's ban on Irish LGBTQ marchers. We don't agree to forget what hasn't ended.

(Originally posted 3/4/16)

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Press release: At Tues. parade protest, plans to celebrate Irish LGBTQ icons, Bronx cheer for corporate sponsors

PRESS RELEASE – for immediate release

Date: March 15, 2015

Contact: Emmaia Gelman on 917-517-3627

Irish LGBTQ Protest of Exclusion Continues at 2015 NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade

Irish Queers welcome support from NYC officials & Ireland; condemn corporate sponsors.

Press Conference: Tues. March 17, 10:45am at Fifth Ave below W. 57^th St.

Protest: Tues. March 17, 11am-1pm, same location.

Irish Queers and allies will protest the exclusion of Irish LGBTQ groups from the St. Patrick's Day Parade this Tuesday, March 17 at 11am. This year’s protest will feature images of cherished figures whose Irish or Irish-American and LGBTQ identities are inseparable – all of whom would be closeted or banned by the parade organizers.

Irish Queers is proud to count on the support of Mayor de Blasio and the City Council, who have again withdrawn their participation from this year’s parade, because the parade continues to marginalize and shame Irish LGBTQ people. We’re also proud of the ongoing support for inclusion coming from Ireland – gay and straight – where New York’s bigoted parade is widely regarded as an embarrassment. 

The parade committee's admission this year of the gay/straight alliance of their corporate sponsor, NBC, is not inclusion of Irish LGBTQ groups, but more exclusion. The demand has always been for Irish LGBTQ groups to march under banners that say who we are without shame – not corporate groups, marching behind an “OUT” banner that avoids mentioning “lesbian”, “gay”, “bisexual”, or “transgender.”

“There is no logic to letting OUT@NBC march except as another way to keep Irish LGBTQ groups out,” said Gaby Cryan of Irish Queers. “The parade organizers have claimed a right to discriminate against us because they’re running it as a Catholic procession. But even the Cardinal calls it ‘a celebration of all things Irish.’”

Guinness and Heineken have joined NBC in supporting the discriminatory parade while also claiming that they oppose discrimination.

“Guinness and Heineken, after dropping their sponsorship of the antigay parade for just one year, have used NBC’s trick as an excuse to resume sponsoring it. It’s totally perverse that Heineken has offered to put money into the inclusive Queens parade as well as the antigay parade. Playing both sides harms the LGBTQ community, and adds insult to injury,” said Eustacia Smith of Irish Queers.

Irish LGBTQ groups have been fighting to take our place in our community’s parade for 25 years. We hope that next year’s parade will finally see the end of discrimination – and that corporations and others who say they support inclusion will work with the Irish LGBTQ community, rather than through back room deals.

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City Limits: Mayor de Blasio can do more than boycott

Exposing the parade organizers' sideways cuts at a religious "free speech" right to discrimination, and the NYPD and City Hall's wildly underreported support for the bigoted message of the parade... And calling on a mayor who has shown he cares about this issue to step all the way up to end the excuses.

Mayor must reckon with St. Patrick's Parade Legacies
3/2/15

http://citylimits.org/2015/03/02/op-ed-mayor-must-reckon-with-st-patricks-parade-legacies/

"De Blasio's boycott alone may not be enough to end the discrimination, but he has the authority to do even more. The question of how to deal with the anti-gay parade has long been muddied by a 1993 court case refiguring it as a private, anti-gay Catholic procession. The mayor's boycott of the parade obscures another problem: City Hall has long supported the parade organizers' exclusion of Irish LGBT groups, and it hasn't stopped yet. If negotiations are underway – the mayor hasn't acknowledged them, but media reports have – then it's time to set the record straight on these two legacies. And it's time for the mayor to take the additional steps he can."

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Statement on de Blasio boycott, Guinness, and NBC - March 3, 2015

Statement from Irish Queers and allies
March 3, 2015

We are heartened that Mayor Bill de Blasio gets that the inclusion of NBC’s corporate gay group in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade is, as he said on Sunday, “too small a change to merit a lot of us participating who have wanted to see an inclusive parade.” To end the 24-year boycott of the parade the organizers need to include identifiable Irish LGBTQ groups—who have long been welcomed in St. Patrick’s Day parades in Ireland. We are angered but not surprised that Guinness, which had long sponsored the exclusionary parade, is back in as a sponsor after a one-year hiatus.

We are appreciative that our allies—from elected officials such as Council Speaker Melisssa Mark-Viverito and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer to grassroots organizers and groups such as the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club to big LGBTQ advocacy organizations including GLAAD, the Empire State Pride Agenda, and the Anti-Violence Project—have held strong against the parade committee’s effort to divide us by admitting the NBC group.

Our message to the parade organizers is simple: Embrace your own. End the ban. Let us march with our people as who we are.

We urge Mayor de Blasio to hold fast and help end this exclusion once and for all. We will continue to boycott the parade until then and will once again protest the parade on March 17 on Fifth Avenue and W. 57th St. if a just resolution is not reached.

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Irish/queer communities to Mayor & NYC Council Speaker: the ban is not lifted, keep the pressure on!

Mayor deBlasio & Speaker Mark-Viverito:
Keep up the boycott of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade until Irish LGBTQ groups can march under their own banner.

Oct. 9, 2014

Dear Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito,

Last year, your public boycott of the anti-gay NYC St. Patrick's Day parade finally paved the way for corporate sponsors to drop the parade. Their departure created pressure on NBC, one of the last remaining sponsors and the broadcaster of the parade, who put pressure on the parade organizers to finally end their ban on Irish LGBTQ groups.

Instead of that pressure leading to Irish LGBTQ groups taking their rightful place in the community's parade, OUT@NBCUniversal has jumped into the space it created. OUT@NBCUniversal is the gay employee/marketing group of the parade's sponsor. The Irish LGBTQ community is still excluded from the parade. The “lifting of the ban” is a sham.

Parade organizers have said that Irish LGBTQ groups may “apply” to march in future St. Patrick’s Day Parades from 2016 on, claiming that there is no room for another group in 2015. This is the same ruse they used in 1991 when they wanted to exclude the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization. When Mayor Dinkins called their bluff and offered to expand the march to allow ILGO in, the organizers came out in the open with their anti-gay reasons for excluding them. This year, when Irish LGBTQ groups applied, parade organizers quickly declared that applications were closed. In the fallout from this gay-panic response, the Catholic League also dropped out of the 2015 march, leaving the parade short of one large contingent. As before, parade organizers simply refuse to let Irish LGBTQ groups march in the newly-opened space.

State and national LGBTQ advocacy groups, as well as groups in Ireland, are supporting the demand for Irish LGBTQ groups to march openly and freely, rather than seeking to march themselves or supporting OUT@NBCUniversal's participation.

Irish LGBTQ groups have also asked OUT@NBCUniversal to withdraw from the parade until Irish LGBTQ groups are part of the parade.

We write to ask that you continue to publicly boycott the parade until Irish LGBTQ groups are accepted into the line of march, and march openly, as full and respected members of the Irish American community.

Because the parade organizers have made misleading claims like “gays are welcome to march, just not to be identified” and now “the ban is lifted, but only for NBC employees”, it's important to be clear about what constitutes inclusion. Irish LGBTQ groups must be able to march just like other contingents: with the group name on a banner identifying the contingent as Irish LGBTQ people. Last year in Boston, parade organizers tried to negotiate with an LGBTQ contingent to march under the word “equality.” But the organizers refused to allow a banner to say “LGBT” or “gay”, as if those were dirty words. So the LGBTQ group rightly declared that parade organizers were not actually willing to lift the ban, and they refused to march. New York City also cannot accept such pretenses at inclusion.

We deeply appreciate your support. Please be in touch with your response, or if we can answer any questions.

Sincerely,

Gaby Cryan, Emmaia Gelman, & J.F. Mulligan

Irish Queers

Kate Barnhart, Executive Director           

New Alternatives for LGBT Homeless Youth

Mary E. Bartholomew, Esq.

Sandy Boyer

Rev. Pat Bumgardner

Metropolitan Community Church - NY

Suzy Byrne

Leslie Cagan

Kailin Callaghan, Lead Organizer

Rockaway Wildfire

Fidelma Carolan, Regional Officer (N. Ireland)

UNISON

Kelly Cogswell, Author of Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger

Michael Czaczkes, President

Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn

Kara Davis, Queer Activist

Bill Dobbs, Gay Civil Libertarian

Erin M. Drinkwater, Executive Director

Brooklyn Community Pride Center

Ronnie Eldridge, Former New York City Councilmember

Jennifer Flynn, Executive Director

VOCAL-NY

Kathleen Gaul

Community Leader at TUSLA, Ireland

Emily Jane Goodman, New York State Supreme Court Justice, Ret.

Marie Honan

Tony Hoffmann, President, Village Independent Democrats*

Stephanie Hsu, Secretary

New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)

Andy Humm and Ann Northrop, Co-Hosts

Gay USA

Esther Kaplan

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

Marjorie Dove Kent, Executive Director

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

SL Korn, Queer Activist

Gareth Lee,

Queer Space Collective Belfast

Bertha Lewis, Executive Director

Black Institute

Mark Libkuman, Open Flows Community Technology Cooperative

Scott Long, Human Rights Activist

Amanda Lugg, Director of Advocacy

African Services Committee

Alan Levine, Civil Rights Attorney

Father Bernárd Lynch, London, Chair of Camden LGBT Forum

Anne Maguire, ILGO

Eileen Markey, Writer

Malachy McCourt

Lucy McDiarmid

Matthew McMorrow, Manager of Government Affairs

Empire State Pride Agenda

Zenaida Mendez, President

National Organization for Women-NYS

Megan Mulholland

QUEEROCRACY

Dr Tina O'Toole, Founder member of LINC Cork

University of Limerick, Ireland

Pauline Park, Executive Director

Queens Pride House

Edward Pass

Allen Roskoff, President

Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club

Sarah Schulman, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, City University of New York-College of Staten Island

Arthur Z. Schwartz, President of Advocates for Justice and Democratic District Leader for Greenwich Village

Tom Shanahan, Civil Rights Attorney

Ailbhe Smyth, LGBT Rights Campaigner
Former Head of Women's Studies and Senior Lecturer, University College Dublin (UCD)

Brad Taylor

Zephyr Teachout, former candidate for Governor, Professor Fordham Law School, and author of Corruption in America

Jay Toole

Jay’s House

Andy Velez

John Voelcker

Urvashi Vaid, Senior Fellow, Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, Columbia Law School*

Maxine Wolfe, Professor Emerita, City University Graduate School

Joan Wile, Author, and Founder, Grandmothers Against the War

Tim Wu, Candidate for Lieutenant Governor/Professor Columbia Law School

Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel

Lesbian Herstory Archive

MIX NYC: Queer Experimental Film Festival

Queer Nation NY

*Asterisk indicates organization listed for identification purposes only.

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Gay City News challenges de Blasio: There's no NYPD "right" to homophobia

Is it wrong to crush out on your community newspaper?! Hope Gay City News doesn't mind, but we're pasting this one in its entirety.

In St. Pat’s Dispute, Free Speech is Not the Issue

BY PAUL SCHINDLER | If you work for a major bank or retailer or airline, it’s more likely than not that you have to get corporate approval before identifying yourself as an employee while participating in a public event. That sort of approval would typically be required, for example, if you and a group of fellow workers wanted to carry a banner with your employer’s logo on it in a parade.

In many cases, that’s not a problem. Corporations welcome opportunities for branding themselves in a wide array of public settings they view as favorable marketing opportunities. The annual LGBT Pride Parade down Fifth Avenue has, in fact, become a riot of corporate logos and colors, with runners stuffing branded tchotchkes into the hands of often unsuspecting spectators. Corporate America, for the most part, loves to create customer loyalty within the LGBT community.

Employers, however, won’t approve the use of their name or logo in every event. Employee groups would encounter trouble winning approval for identifying themselves at demonstrations over controversial issues — say, abortion rights — whether it was a pro-choice or an anti-choice message the event was promoting. Corporations see little downside today in standing with the gay community, but most see reproductive freedom as an issue that still splinters public opinion. There is no clear winner in that debate from the marketing perspective of most businesses.

Approval would almost certainly be denied if an event were widely deemed as unpopular or patently offensive. It’s hard to imagine any major business allowing its name to be used in a march promoting bigoted or racist views.

Nobody would argue that, in denying their employees the authority to use their corporate identification or logo in a public event, a company was impinging on the free speech rights of their workers. Employers likely — and rightly — have little or no ability to control the right of their workers, on their own time, to participate in even offensive public events, but they can certainly control what events their corporate names are drawn into.

All of this is relevant because Mayor Bill de Blasio, in saying city workers have the right to march in uniform in the discriminatory March 17 St. Patrick’s Day Parade and that he “absolutely respect[s]” the decision by Police Commissioner William Bratton to do the same, suggests that the right to free speech or free expression is somehow at issue here.

It’s not, and the mayor should know that.

“The NYPD has a strong interest in controlling the use of its symbols, including its uniform. When an officer marches in uniform with a particular group, the clearest message sent to the public is that the NYPD –– not the particular officer –– approves of that group.” –– 1999 brief filed by the City of New York in the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals

The right of the parade’s organizers to deny participation by openly LGBT groups — to discriminate against them — has been upheld by the US Supreme Court. The parade is deemed a private event — even if one facilitated by significant public safety resources — and so its organizers have the right to control its message.

The city, however, bound by its human rights law, does not have the right to lend its authority and stamp of approval to that discrimination. And it does have the right to determine when its workers can use their uniforms and other symbols of their employment in public settings.

The city, in fact, has made precisely that argument in a federal appeals court. In a 1999 brief filed with the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving police marching in uniform and with an identifying banner, the city argued, “As a quasi-military organization, the NYPD has a strong interest in controlling the use of its symbols, including its uniform. When an officer marches in uniform with a particular group, the clearest message sent to the public is that the NYPD — not the particular officer — approves of that group. If members insisted on the right to march in uniform with the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi Party, the NYPD’s credibility with the community would be seriously undermined and its ability to perform its mission irreparably damaged.”

That’s the nut of the argument made by several hundred LGBT activists and their allies in a February 3 letter to de Blasio — that in co-signing the discriminatory practices of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, uniformed city employees, the bulk of them police officers and fire fighters, are compromising the clear message of equal treatment under the law that LGBT New Yorkers, like all their fellow citizens, deserve to hear.

De Blasio has been widely and rightly praised for being the first mayor since David Dinkins to refuse to himself march in the parade. It’s unfortunate, however, that he has chosen to obfuscate the bigger issue at hand. As mayor, he has the potential to forge an historic breakthrough in the city’s sad St. Patrick’s Day history by insisting that the parade organizers either end their bigoted practices or risk losing the colorful participation of uniformed police and firefighter contingents.

LGBT New Yorkers have the right to expect de Blasio to lead in this fashion. And they should also be able to hope that our new progressive mayor does not accord misplaced “respect” toward those who choose to join the narrow-minded crowd that controls Fifth Avenue on the 17th.

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De Blasio: Is Bratton trying to pull a Giuliani on you?

(Pic from streetsblog.org.)

Although Commissioner Bratton has flatly ignored the community's letter about the homophobic parade, he did tell a reporter last Friday (2/28) that he plans to march in the 'phobe parade. When asked what message the NYPD is sending the LGBTQ community by joining in a major display of bigotry, Bratton irrelevantly answered: "my sister is gay!" We'll try to remember that next time a homophobic cop harasses/ignores/harms a queer who's asked them for help.

Mayor de Blasio, in response to the same question from a different reporter, replied "I've sent plenty a message to the LGBT community." You heard it here first, queer community, de Blasio has already given you everything you deserve in his first two months in office. The next 3 years and 10 months are feeling very long.

Bratton:
“My own family -- my sister is gay, married in Boston. So I am very comfortable with where I am on gay issues. St. Patrick’s Day Parade for me is a celebration of heritage. “It’s that simple.”

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De Blasio: (This transcript was provided to reporters by the Administration.)

  

Question: You are not marching in the St. Patrick’s Parade –

Mayor: Correct.

Question: However, one of your top commissioners says that he will march, Commissioner Bratton. Is Bratton trying to pull a Giuliani on you?

Mayor: No. It’s his right as an American citizen to make that decision, and I honor his right to do so. And I have said many times, I think he’s an extraordinary police commissioner, I have immense respect for him. And that’s a personal decision he’s made, and I respect it.

Question: But what message does it give to the LGBT community?

Mayor: I think I sent a message from this platform, from this podium, in this office, in this building, that mayors over the last twenty years did not send. So I think I’ve sent plenty a message.

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LGBTQ coalition letter to NYPD's Bratton & FDNY's Cassano (ignored)

Commissioner William Bratton New York City Police Department 1 Police Plaza New York, NY 10007 By email to: dcpi@nypd.org By fax to: (646) 610-8795

Commissioner Salvatore Cassano New York City Fire Department 9 MetroTech Center Brooklyn, NY 11201 By email to: fdnyopi@fdny.nyc.gov By fax to: 718-999-0033

Feb. 20, 2014

Dear Commissioner Bratton and Commissioner Cassano,

As you know, the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade has excluded lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified groups and individuals since 1991. The parade’s avowed bigotry has been a constant source of pain and protest for the LGBTQ community. After the NYC Human Rights Commission found in 1992 that a public parade could not discri minate, the parade organizers set out to preserve their bigoted message by recasting the parade as an act of “private, religious” speech. They have endowed the parade with a clear and deliberate anti-gay message, affirmed first in court in 1993, and every year subsequently in response to inquiries from media and elected officials.

The homophobic message of the parade is so indisputable that Mayor de Blasio has said he will not march, and several leading government ministers in Ireland have announced that they can no longer justify Irish government participation in the parade, and support a boycott.

We recognize that the parade organizers have established a legal right to the exclusionary procession they have characterized as private, religious, and anti-gay. However, New York City Human Rights Law prohibits the City from approving or joining in such discrimination. Accordingly, we ask that you uphold City law by taking immediate action to prohibit uniformed NYPD and FDNY officers from marching in the parade, and to prohibit use of departmental resources for organizing participation in the parade.

The parade is so intrinsically, essentially homophobic that the presence of identifiable LGBTQ people – whether an Irish LGBTQ cultural group marching with a banner bearing the group’s name, or an individual identified in any way as a non-straight person – is rejected by organizers as anathema to the parade’s message.

Yet uniformed officers of the NYPD and FDNY are a main feature of the parade, marching in their thousands every year. They march with top brass of both departments. They march in dozens of departmentally sanctioned contingents, both official and fraternal. They march early in the parade line-up, in spots reserved for groups who hold close relationships with the parade organizers. The meaning we receive is clear: the NYPD and FDNY support the parade’s religious, anti-gay message, and the parade’s injury to the LGBTQ community is not deemed important.

This official endorsement of one of the country’s largest displays of homophobia has annually compounded the discrimination and bigotry many LGBTQ people have experienced in dealings with the NYPD, and it resonates with ongoing allegations of discrimination plaguing the FDNY. Those of us who have protested the parade’s anti-gay message over the last two decades have had particular confirmation of NYPD and FDNY members’ homophobia as they have marched past us shouting anti-gay slogans – or as police have arrested protesters while shouting epithets and worse. These instances are impossible to accept as individual behavior of “bad apples” while both departments are so thoroughly embedded in the parade.

In the broader LGBTQ community, and in other communities with histories of police discrimination in particular, witnessing the NYPD’s enthusiastic participation in this bigoted parade exacerbates the fear that the police are not interested in serving all of us.  The consequence to a vulnerable community arising from the appearance that a city’s uniformed services endorse a message of bigotry has been eloquently described by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F.3d 143 (2d Cir. 2002):

“The effectiveness of a city's police department depends importantly on the respect and trust of the community and on the perception in the community that it enforces the law fairly, even-handedly, and without bias. If the police department treats a segment of the population of any race, religion, gender, national origin, or sexual preference, etc., with contempt, so that the particular minority comes to regard the police as oppressor rather than protector, respect for law enforcement is eroded and the ability of the police to do its work in that community is impaired.”

For both the NYPD and FDNY, the annual insistence on marching – over the outcry of communities they’re sworn to serve – deepens mistrust in the City’s commitment to its own human rights law. Individual officers in their private capacities may have the right to participate in such events, but the NYPD and FDNY must withdraw their official imprimatur from the parade.

We ask the courtesy of a response before February 26^th, 2014. Please reply to the address below.

Attached please find this group’s letter to Mayor de Blasio, signed by over 200 New York City community organizations, public officials, community activists, and civil rights attorneys.

Sincerely,

Gabrielle Cryan

Bill Dobbs

Jennifer Flynn

Emmaia Gelman

Andy Humm

Amanda Lugg

John Francis Mulligan

Ann Northrop

Pauline Park

Allen Roskoff

for the Ad Hoc Committee To Ban NYPD & FDNY Participation in Discriminatory Parades

Please direct your reply to:

Alan Levine, Esq.

99 Hudson St.  14^th Fl, 10013

Tel: (212) 739-7506 // Fax: (212) 431-4276

Email: *****

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Legal brief: Do NYPD officers have a "free speech right" to bigoted parades?

The City of New York doesn't think so -- not in uniform, anyway. Here's the City's brief in Latino Officers Association v. City of New York (1999).

"When an officer marches in uniform with a particular group, the clearest message sent to the public is that the NYPD -- not the particular officer -- approves of that group. If members insisted on the right to march in uniform with the Ku lux Klan or the Nazi Party, the NYPD's credibility with the community would be seriously undermined and its ability to perform its mission irreparably damaged."

Okay?

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Press release: Irish/LGBTQ Coalition Slams Bratton on Anti-Gay Parade

PRESS RELEASE - For Immediate Release - Feb. 28, 2014

Irish/LGBTQ Coalition Slams NYPD Commissioner’s Decision to Join St. Patrick’s Day Parade; Bratton Endorsement of Homophobia Taints Police-Community Relations.

Marching in 'St. Pat’s for All' this Sunday, Coalition will call for withdrawal of uniformed NYPD & FDNY participation in Fifth Ave parade.

Press availability for comment at ‘St. Pat’s for All’ parade: Sunday 3/2 from 1-2pm in Sunnyside, Queens: 47th Street, mid-block between Skillman Ave. and 39th Ave. 

Contact:  Emmaia Gelman (917) 517-3627

New York – "NYPD Commissioner Bratton's announcement that he will march in the homophobic St. Patrick's Day Parade on Fifth Avenue is a slap in the face to LGBTQ people and all New Yorkers," said JF Mulligan of Irish Queers. "The Commissioner's one-word dismissal of a boiling civil rights issue is insulting and deliberately provocative. Bratton should be joining the Mayor and the City Council in refusing to endorse the insistent bigotry of the parade organizing committee.”

A coalition of more than 200 groups and individuals concerned with LGBTQ rights and biased policing had written to NYPD Commissioner Bratton and FDNY Commissioner Cassano last week, outlining their obligation to withdraw their official endorsement from biased events. Neither Commissioner responded. (See letter: http://irishqueers.blogspot.com/2014/02/calling-commissioners.html.)

“This parade was recast as a ‘private, religious procession’ for the sole purpose of circumventing anti-discrimination law. How are we supposed to watch thousands of cops march in an exclusionary, religious-right parade and then somehow trust them with our safety?” said Mulligan.

“Commissioner Bratton’s refusal even to acknowledge the LGBTQ community’s concern is a glaring confirmation that the NYPD is not accessible to us. Commissioner Bratton’s history in NYC inspires fear, not confidence, in communities who have been the targets of NYPD bias. His casual disregard translates directly to homophobia in the precincts,” said Jennifer Flynn of Irish Queers.

Early in February, the coalition petitioned Mayor de Blasio to pull uniformed City officials from the parade. The Mayor has not agreed to do that, although the request prompted the Mayor’s announcement that he would not attend the parade himself.

“The Mayor’s boycott of the parade is undermined by Commissioner Bratton’s declaration of his intention to march. The Mayor has to take action to stand the City in opposition to this parade. If police in Russia marched in an anti-gay parade in uniform, it would be front page news here,” said Flynn.

“The NYPD and FDNY's participation in the parade is hugely questionable under the law – and the fact that the Mayor doesn't seem concerned with remedying this problem is as disturbing legally as it is morally and politically,” said civil rights attorney Alan Levine in an earlier statement.

Government ministers in Ireland are also supporting the boycott and calling on Ireland’s conservative prime minister to stay away. LGBTQ organizations in Ireland have called on the Irish government and Gardaí (police) to shun the parade and reject its skewed portrayal of Irish culture. 

The coalition will march in the St. Pat’s for All parade in Queens this Sunday.

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Religion & the City

Those who think of NYC as a place where the streets are so many miles of open-air forum for free expression and diversity... must not live here. This is an incredibly difficult and conservative place for conversations about accountable policing, preserving secular spaces, and supporting communities that don't toe the mainstream line.

In this GCN editorial (and article reporting on some gay elected officials' mysterious refusal to get behind the queer community on the #$%^& parade issue) Gay City News pulls back the veil on how church & state are not so separate in New York City.

Discrimination and a Tale of Two Cities (Editor's letter, Gay City News)

'What I find most frustrating about de Blasio’s position on both these issues is that I suspect he “gets” the problem raised by uniformed cops marching on St. Patrick’s Day and by anti-gay congregations getting bargain-priced space in the public schools. Taking on the organizers of the parade, the uninformed police and firefighter groups that traditionally march, and congregations that may have strong support in specific neighborhoods could be viewed as a distraction for a new mayor with an ambitious agenda. But I am in no way minimizing the significant and laudable goals de Blasio is pursuing to say that the city must also be vigilant in making certain that its resources and legal and moral authority are not used to enable discrimination.'

Despite Mayor’s Firm No, St. Pat’s Activists Persevere (Duncan Osborne, Gay City News)

'Elected officials who support de Blasio’s progressive agenda and feel some loyalty toward a fellow Democrat may be declining to sign in order to give the mayor some political cover. “It’s weird and frustrating that [Jimmy Van Bramer and Danny Dromm] haven’t signed on,” Gelman said. “They are both in new positions of power in a world with a new progressive mayor. We know that when people with a history of activism get closer to power, they pull back from making demands.”'

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GCN: Barely Taking a Breath, de Blasio Says “Nyet”

http://gaycitynews.com/barely-taking-breath-de-blasio-says-nyet/

Less than 24 hours after LGBT activists and their allies called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to bar uniformed city personnel from marching in the Fifth Avenue St. Patrick’s Day Parade, they received a pretty firm no. 

Asked by reporters on February 4 for his response to the activists’ letter, the mayor said, “I believe that uniformed city workers have a right to participate if they choose to, and I respect that right.”

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Sign yourself on to DeBlasio letter!

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Press release: DeBlasio under fire

Feb. 4, 2014

MAYOR DE BLASIO UNDER FIRE FOR REMARKS ON ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE

STATEMENT OF THE AD HOC COALITION AGAINST CITY PARTICIPATION IN DISCRIMINATORY PARADES


Contact: Emmaia Gelman (917) 517-3627, emmaia.gelman@gmail.com

Yesterday a broad-based community letter called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to direct NYPD and FDNY Commissioners to stop sending uniformed officers to the nation's largest anti-LGBTQ event—the NYC St. Patrick's Day parade. In response, the Mayor has ducked and punted, saying only that he won't march himself. This isn't much to be celebrated: no truly progressive politician has marched since the parade banned the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization from marching with its banner in 1991, and Mayor Dinkins stood alongside ILGO only to be pelted with beer cans.

The parade is explicitly anti-gay and discriminatory. Because the NYC Human Rights Commission said it violated the City's human rights law in 1992, parade organizers sought deliberately to define it as a private and religious event in order to continue to exclude LGBTQ people. Indeed, John Dunleavy, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade chairman, infamously compared LGBTQ marchers to the KKK being allowed to march in an African-American parade in Harlem.  

Police and firefighters march by the thousands, making up most of the parade. (Did you think it was a celebration of Irish pride? That’s so 1992.) Their uniforms clearly convey that the City endorses the march. The Mayor's cavalier dismissal of the City's human rights law today compounds that effect. We get it: we LGBTQ people don't matter.

When NYPD and the FDNY wear their official work uniforms and march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, they diminish their sworn respect for the laws of this great city and violate the spirit of the city’s human rights law. Employers make rules about uniforms and that’s the issue in dispute – the wearing of official uniforms which conveys to the world that this parade’s bigotry is endorsed by our city government.

But the law protects us, and we will insist that the Mayor uphold it. We are told that we can march if we don’t identify ourselves in any way. If that is the way we are to be treated, then City personnel should march as individuals with their counties but not in City uniforms.

While we protest the rising homophobia in Russia, Nigeria and elsewhere around the world, we seek to end homophobic discrimination here at home as well. The St. Pat’s Parade has a right to its anti-gay march under the constitution. But the City and all supporters of human rights must do everything we can to isolate it.

The coalition’s full letter to Mayor de Blasio with scores of signatories from the City, civic, activist and legal communities is here: http://irishqueers.blogspot.com/2014/02/deblasio-letter.html

STATEMENT OF ALAN LEVINE, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS COOPERATING ATTORNEY:

“The NYC human rights law is a protection for LGBTQ people and others who have been subject to discrimination, some overt and some  more subtle but equally insidious. It says that the City cannot reduce minority groups' access to services like policing and public safety. Federal case law also affirms it: the police cannot do their job where they are viewed 'more as oppressor than protector.’ The NYPD and FDNY's participation in the parade is hugely questionable under the law—and the fact that the Mayor doesn't seem concerned with remedying this problem is as disturbing legally as it is morally and politically.

If the guarantee  of respect for equality and dignity that is embedded in human rights law and the constitution means anything, it surely means that uniformed police – who are charged with equal enforcement of the law – should not be parading down a public street conveying a message of contempt for one of our City’s communities.”

STATEMENT OF SEAN BARRY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF VOCAL-NY:

"We see discriminatory policing every day that targets LGBTQ people, youth of color and other marginalized communities. When police put so much energy into marching in a parade that openly discriminates, and the mayor condones it, it sends the wrong signal about whether the culture of the NYPD is really changing. There’s no doubt Mayor de Blasio recognizes that the parade’s policy is wrong. We hope that he reconsiders his decision regarding the participation of uniformed city workers in the parade to reflect a consistent policy of inclusion and respect for LGBTQ New Yorkers.”

STATEMENT OF JOHN FRANCIS MULLIGAN, IRISH QUEERS

“We have spent the past 22 years at the sidelines of the St Patrick’s Day Parade being spat on, threatened and marginalized. Initially homophobia was an Irish community problem, but changes here and in Ireland have done away with much of that early tension. All that's left are the NYPD and FDNY, who make up most of the marchers in the nation's biggest parade of hate. The intention is clear—they're not just marching, they are the message. We can't make them not be bigots but we can invoke the law. It is illegal for them to march in their official capacity.”

STATEMENT OF AMANDA LUGG, DIRECTOR OF ADVOCACY, AFRICAN SERVICES COMMITTEE

“New York City is supposed to be a haven for all of us, with a human rights law to move us out of a long history of unequal treatment and abuses at the hands of police. But every year we see the sea of city uniforms marching on Fifth Avenue in a display of -- at best -- total disregard for a portion of the community. The bitter irony is that our government is working against gross anti-gay laws in Nigeria, Uganda, and elsewhere, and such bigotry at home shamefully undermines that work.”

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UPDATED: LGBTQ and Allies Letter to Mayor on City Participation in Discriminatory Parades

Want to sign on yourself? Click here.
Contact: Emmaia Gelman (917) 517-3627, emmaia.gelman@gmail.com

2/3/2014

Dear Mayor de Blasio:

More than twenty years ago, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization sought to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue and was excluded. In 1993, parade organizers used a court case to declare it a private, religious procession whose anti-gay message would be controverted by the presence of an identifiable Irish LGBTQ group—even though LGBTQ groups are welcome in St. Patrick’s Day parades all over Ireland.

From then on, City leaders supportive of LGBTQ rights and dignity have boycotted the parade. But the Police Commissioner and thousands of uniformed police, organized by their precincts, have marched every year in this explicitly anti-gay parade. Firefighters and other City personnel also march every year in their official capacity.

The organizers of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade have established a constitutional right to their exclusionary religious procession, but the participation of police and firefighters is a clear violation of the City’s Human Rights Law, appended below.

The presence of uniformed police and firefighters in such a procession sends a clear signal to LGBTQ New Yorkers that these personnel, who are charged with serving and protecting all New Yorkers, do not respect the lives or safety of LGBT people. It confirms the practice of the NYPD and FDNY at times of targeting certain communities for discrimination. What’s more, it betrays the current work of high level government agencies and human rights advocates working internationally against the current wave of extreme anti-LGBTQ legislation and discriminatory practices occurring in countries such as Nigeria, Uganda and Russia.

Indeed, legal precedent on this matter, in Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F.3d 143 (2d Cir. 2002), says: “The effectiveness of a city's police department depends importantly on the respect and trust of the community and on the perception in the community that it enforces the law fairly, even-handedly, and without bias. If the police department treats a segment of the population of any race, religion, gender, national origin, or sexual preference, etc., with contempt, so that the particular minority comes to regard the police as oppressor rather than protector, respect for law enforcement is eroded and the ability of the police to do its work in that community is impaired.”

We are asking you to direct all City departments not to organize marchers for or allow personnel to participate in this anti-LGBTQ procession either in uniform or with any banner that identifies them with the City.

The 2014 St. Patrick's Day parade is approaching. We ask that you act immediately on this matter. We would be pleased to meet for further discussion on a timeline that addresses this year's march.

Sincerely,

[Signatures as of 3/11/14. List in formation. Updates will be posted at http://irishqueers.blogspot.com/2014/02/deblasio-letter.html]

Organizations

ACT UP/New York (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)

African Services Committee - Amanda Lugg, Director of Advocacy

Brooklyn Community Pride Center – Erin Drinkwater, Executive Director

CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities

The Center for HIV Law and Policy - Catherine Hanssens, Executive Director

Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY) Steering Committee

Gay City News

Gay USA TV program - Ann Northrop, Co-host

GRIOT Circle - Katherine Acey, Executive Director

The International Action Center - Teresa Gutierrez, Co-Director

Irish Queers - Gaby Cryan, Emmaia Gelman & John Francis Mulligan

Jay's House - Jay Toole, Executive Director and Founder

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice - Marjorie Dove Kent, Executive Director

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice Campaign for Police Accountability - Marla Erlien, Claude Heffron, Maya Orli, Daniel Rosza Lang/Levitsky

Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club - Allen Roskoff, President

Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn - Michael Czaczkes, President

Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club of Queens (LGDCQ) - Michael Mallon, President

Lesbian Herstory Archives

Metropolitan Community Church of NY - Rev. Pat Bumgardner

Milk Not Jails

National Lawyers Guild, NYC Chapter

New Alternatives for LGBT Homeless Youth - Kate Barnhart, Director

New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) - Stephanie Hsu, Secretary

New York City Anti-Violence Project

New York City Dyke March Committee

North Star Fund - Hugh Hogan, Executive Director

Out-FM on WBAI-NY – John Riley and Naomi Brussell

Peoples Power Assembly - Imani Keith Henry, Organizer

Picture the Homeless

Queens Pride House - Pauline Park, President & Acting Executive Director

QUEEROCRACY

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid-NYC - Brad Taylor

Q-Wave - Alain Chan, Steering Committee member

Stonewall Democrats of New York City - Melissa Sklarz, President

VOCAL-NY

WNYACT (Western New Yorkers Against Conversion Therapy)

City Officials and former City Officials

Hon. Letitia James, Public Advocate of the City of New York

Hon. Eric Adams, President, Borough of Brooklyn

Hon. Mark Green, former Public Advocate of the City of New York

Hon. Betsy Gotbaum, former Public Advocate of the City of New York

Hon. John Liu, former New York City Comptroller

Hon. Brad Hoylman, New York State Senator, 27^th District, Manhattan

Hon. Corey Johnson, New York City Council, Manhattan

Hon. Mark Levine, New York City Council, Manhattan

Hon. Rosie Mendez, New York City Council, Manhattan

Hon. Helen Rosenthal, New York City Council, Manhattan

Hon. Ritchie Torres, New York City Council, Bronx

Hon. Ronnie Eldridge, former member, New York City Council

Hon. Herman “Denny” Farrell, New York State Assembly, Manhattan

Hon. Richard Gottfried, New York State Assembly, Manhattan

Hon. Keith Wright, New York State Assembly, Manhattan

Hon. Andy Humm, former New York City Human Rights Commissioner

Hon. Dr. Joyce Hunter, former New York City Human Rights Commissioner

Hon. James B. Levin, former New York City Human Rights Commissioner

Individuals (affiliations for identification purposes only)

Sammer Aboelela, Muslim community activist

Donna Aceto, activist, photographer and Gay City News freelancer

Curtis Arluck, Democratic District Leader, Morningside Heights

Nadia Awad

Mary C. Bakel, MSW, social activist

Sean Barry, Executive Director, VOCAL-NY

Mary E. Bartholomew, Esq., IPEC (Irish Parades Emergency Committee)

Hon. Marle Becker, NY County Democratic Committee

Jamie Bauer

Mark Black, veteran gay activist

Sandy Boyer, Irish community activist

Christopher Herman Brandt

Dwayne Brown, Executive Director, Jamaican Anti-homophobia Stand

Reginald T. Brown, M.Ed., Unity Fellowship of Christ Movement

Martha Burgess

Dennis Byrnes, Cranston, RI

Leslie Cagan, peace and justice organizer

Scott Caplan, Police Misconduct and Corruption Officer, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club

George Carter, Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research

Sheri Clemons

Debra Cooper, Democratic State Committeeperson, Upper West Side

Peter Cramer

Michael Cunningham

Kara Davis, Queer activist

Brother Mark D’Alessio, SSF

Ann D’Ercole, Ph.D., Psychologist

Bill Dobbs, gay civil libertarian

Chelsea Dreher

Jack Drescher, MD, Clinical Professor, New York Medical College

Lisa Duggan, Professor, Dept of Social & Cultural Analysis, NYU

Hazel Dukes

Andrew El-Kadi

Hugh English

Lisa Fane

Brendan Fay, St. Pat’s for All, Founder and Co-Chair

Louis Flores, blogger

Jennifer Flynn, Managing Director, Health GAP

Richard Gamboa, artist/activist/academic

Robert Gangi, PROP (Police Reform Organizing Project)

Carl George

Kt Good

Ryan Green

Brother Mark Gregory, Society of St. Francis

Lisa Guido

Yvonne M. Harrison, Restoration Temple Ministries

Anthony Heilbut, author

Jenny Heinz

Ronald E. Hellman, MD, Director, LGBT Affirmative Program, South Beach Psychiatric Center

Geoffrey Hendricks, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University and former President of the Board of Visual AIDS

Tony Hoffmann, President, Village Independent Democrats

Douglas Jennings

Bishop Zachary Jones, Unity Fellowship of Christ Church

Jay Kallio, veteran LGBT activist

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, retired Professor of Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature, Queens College

Esther Kaplan

Ken Kidd, Queer Nation NY

Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah

SL Korn, Queer activist

Mark Landis, Democratic District Leader, 67th Assembly District, Part C

Rick Landman, veteran gay activist

Bob Lederer, member of WBAI Local Station Board; contributing producer, Out-FM on WBAI radio

Glen Leiner, veteran gay activist

Scott Long, human rights activist

Harris Lirtzman, veteran gay activist

Alan Timothy Lunceford, End AIDS Now

Revd. Dr. Bernárd J. Lynch, Chair of Camden London LGBTQ Forum, England

Ronald Madson and Richard Dietz, plaintiffs in suit that won domestic partner benefits for all City employees in Lesbian and Gay Teachers Association vs. The NYC Board of Education

Anne Maguire

Eli Mayer, PsyD, Clinical Psychologist

Malachy McCourt, Irish Pagan and author

David M. McDowell, MD (psychiatrist), Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center

David McReynolds, Socialist Workers Party

Mark Milano, ACT UP/NY

Patrick Moffitt

Megan Mulholland, Co-Director, QUEEROCRACY

Eileen Myles, poet

Kevin Noble, Irish community activist

Bernard O’Brien

Paul O’Dwyer

Edward Pass

Robert Pinter, Campaign to Stop the False Arrests

Jessica Rechtschaffer

Charles Rice-Gonzalez, author and co-founder of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance

Nelson Santos, Executive Director, Visual AIDS

Elizabeth Savicz, teacher

Nathan M. Schaefer, Executive Director, Empire State Pride Agenda

Paul Schindler, editor-in-chief of Gay City News, and Bert Vaccari

Sarah Schulman, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, City University of New York-College of Staten Island

Arthur Schwartz, Greenwich Village District Leader

Elaine Shulman, President, Ansonia Independent Democrats

Charles Silverstein, Ph.D., Former Director, Institute for Human Identity

Jo Anne Simon, NYS Democratic Committeewoman and District Leader, 52^nd Assembly District, Brooklyn

Trish Spoto

Armanda Squadrilli

Sarinya Srisakul, NYC firefighter and President of United Women Firefights

Jessica Stern, Director, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)

Colm Tóibín, author

Michael Tikili, co-founder and board member QUEEROCRACY

Urvashi Vaid

Andy Velez

Thomas S. Verni (Ret. Detective), NYPD Community Affairs, Citywide LGBT Community Liaison 

Shep Wahnon, veteran gay activist

Dr. George Weinberg, psychotherapist, author of Society and the Healthy Homosexual (1972) identifying homophobia as social ill

Seth Weissman, Victory Fund Campaign Board Member

Robert West, President/Founder, Breaking Bread Under the Rainbow

Edmund White, writer

Sherry Wolf, associate editor, International Socialist Review

Maxine Wolfe, Professor Emerita, City University Graduate School and Coordinator Lesbian Herstory Archive

Ellen Zaltzberg, retired City worker

Joanie Hieger Fritz Zosike, THAW, and under DADAnewyork

Legal (affiliations for identification purposes only)

Susan Abraham, Professor of Law, New York Law School

Beena Ahmad, Civil Rights Attorney

Bina Ahmad, Criminal Defense Attorney and National Vice President of the National Lawyers Guild

Afua Atta-Mensah, Attorney

Lee F. Bantle, Civil Rights Attorney

Melynda Barnhart, Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School

Fran Bress, Professor of Law, New York Law School

Juan Cartagena, President & General Counsel, LatinoJustice PRLDEF

Ellen P. Chapnick, Dean for Social Justice Initiatives, Columbia Law School

Elena L. Cohen, President, National Lawyers Guild-New York City Chapter

Kathleen Conkey, Attorney

Pamela Edwards, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

Hillary Exter, public interest lawyer

J. Todd Fernandez, Human Rights Attorney

Joan P. Gibbs, Esq., Civil Rights Attorney

Mercer Givhan, Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School

Julie Goldscheid, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

Larry Grosberg, Professor of Law, New York Law School

Abdeen Jabara, former President, American Arab Antidiscrimination Committee

Ken Kimerling, Civil Rights Attorney

Alan Levine, Civil Rights Attorney

Arthur Leonard, Professor of Law, New York Law School

Richard A. Levy, Union and Civil Rights Attorney

Foster Maer, Civil Rights Attorney

Holly Maguigan, Professor of Law, NYU Law School

Carlin Meyer, Professor of Law, New York Law School

Benjamin Meyers, Attorney

James Meyerson, Civil Rights Attorney

Stephen A. Newman, Professor of Law, New York Law School

Gideon Oliver, Civil Rights Attorney

Edward Purcell, Distinguished Professor of Law, New York Law School

David Rankin, Civil Rights Attorney

Michael Ratner, President Emeritus, Center for Constitutional Rights

Andrea Ritchie, Civil Rights Attorney

Allie Robbins, CUNY School of Law

Franklin Siegel, Civil Rights Attorney

Jane Marcia Spinak, Clinical Professor of Law, Columbia law School

Michael Steven Smith, Esq., Member, Board of Directors, Center for Constitutional Rights

Martin R. Stolar, Civil Rights Attorney

Richard Storrow, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

Peter Strauss, Distinguished Adjunct Professor, New York Law School

Nadine Strossen, Professor of Law, New York Law School and former President of the ACLU

Mark Taylor, Civil Rights Attorney

Susan Tipograph, Attorney

Bela August Walker, Associate Professor of Law, Roger Williams School of Law

Daniel Warshawsky, Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School

Rose M. Weber, Civil Rights Attorney

Melvin L. Wulf, former Legal Director, ACLU

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New York City Human Rights Law
(http://www.nyc.gov/html/cchr/html/law/nyc-human-rights-ch1.shtml#1)

Title 8 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York

Chapter 1 - Commission on Human Rights

§ 8-101 Policy. In the City of New York, with its great cosmopolitan population, there is no greater danger to the health, morals, safety and welfare of the city and its inhabitants than the existence of groups prejudiced against one another and antagonistic to each other because of their actual or perceived differences, including those based on race, color, creed, age, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, partnership status, any lawful source of income, status as a victim of domestic violence or status as a victim of sex offenses or stalking, lawful occupation, whether children are, may be or would be residing with a person or conviction or arrest record. The council hereby finds and declares that prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, and discrimination and disorder occasioned thereby threaten the rights and proper privileges of its inhabitants and menace the institutions and foundation of a free democratic state. A city agency is hereby created with power to eliminate and prevent discrimination from playing any role in actions relating to employment, public accommodations and housing and other real estate, and to take other actions against prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, discrimination and bias-related violence or harassment as herein provided; and the commission established hereunder is hereby given general jurisdiction and power for such purposes.

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