New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams signed laws Friday that can ban discrimination based mostly on physique measurement by including weight and top to the listing of protected classes reminiscent of 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,” mentioned 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 food regimen, mentioned the ordinance “will assist stage the taking part in discipline for all New Yorkers, create extra inclusive workplaces and dwelling environments, and defend in opposition to discrimination.”
Exemptions beneath the ordinance, which the metropolis council handed this month, embody instances through which a person’s top or weight may stop 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 may turn out to be an onerous burden.
“The extent of the influence and value of this laws has not been totally thought-about,” Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York Metropolis, mentioned in a press release.
A number of different U.S. cities have banned discrimination based mostly on weight and bodily look, together with San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin. And laws to ban weight and top discrimination has been launched in states together with New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Tigress Osborn, the chair of the Nationwide Affiliation to Advance Fats Acceptance, mentioned New York Metropolis’s weight discrimination ban ought to function a mannequin for the nation and the world.
Osborn mentioned the town’s adoption of the brand new ordinance “will ripple throughout the globe” and present that “discrimination in opposition to individuals based mostly on their physique measurement is mistaken and is one thing that we will change.”
The ordinance will take impact in 180 days, on Nov. 22.
