Senate Bill S7457

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S7457

 TITLE OF BILL :

An act to amend the executive law, in relation to expanding the scope
of unlawful discriminatory practices to include public educational
institutions

 PURPOSE OF THE BILL :

The purpose of the bill is to extend the anti-discrimination
protections of Article 15 of the Executive Law ("Human Rights Law") to
cover public as well as private schools.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

Section 1 of the bill would add a new § 292.35 to the Executive Law to
define "educational institution" to include language currently in
Executive Law § 296.4, which prohibits discrimination in an "education
corporation or association which holds itself out to the public to be
non-sectarian and exempt from taxation pursuant to the provisions of
article four of the real property tax law," and to expand the
definition to include "any public school, including any school
district, board of cooperative educational services, public college,
or public university."

              

Section 2 of the bill would provide a technical amendment to remove
the language that would appear in the new definition of "educational
institution" from § 296.4 of the Executive Law.

Section 3 of the bill would make it effective immediately.

 STATEMENT IN SUPPORT :

This bill would amend the Human Rights Law so that its
anti-discrimination provisions, which afford protection against
discrimination, harassment and bullying for members of protected
groups, apply to public educational institutions, and not just to
private schools, as was held in 2012 by the Court of Appeals. North
Syracuse Central Sch. Dist. v. N.Y. State Div. of Human Rights, 19
N.Y.3d 481, 950 N.Y.S.2d 67 (2012).

The right to be free from discrimination by educational institutions
is set out as one of the purposes of the New York State Human Rights
Law, the oldest anti-discrimination law in the country. Thus, at the
outset, the Human Rights Law states:

The legislature hereby finds and declares that the state has the
responsibility to act to assure that every individual within this
state is afforded an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive
life and that the failure to provide such equal opportunity, whether
because of discrimination, prejudice, intolerance or inadequate
education, training, housing or health care not only threatens the
rights and proper privileges of its inhabitants but menaces the
institutions and foundation of a free democratic state and threatens
the peace, order, health, safety and general welfare of the state and
its inhabitants.  A division in the executive department is hereby
created to encourage programs designed to insure that every individual
shall have an equal opportunity to participate fully in the economic,
cultural and intellectual life of the state; to encourage and promote
the development and execution by all persons within the state of such
state programs; to eliminate and prevent discrimination in employment,
in places of public accommodation, resort or amusement, in educational
institutions, in public services, in housing accommodations, in
commercial space and in credit transactions and to take other actions
against discrimination as herein provided; and the division
established hereunder is hereby given general jurisdiction and power
for such purposes. Exec. L. § 290.3.

Moreover, in § 291 of the Human Rights Law the "opportunity to obtain
education" without discrimination is "recognized and declared to be a
civil right." Exec. L. § 291.2. There is no suggestion that the
legislature intended to limit its application to private schools.
Indeed, addressing the inadequacy of education cannot be achieved
without holding public institutions accountable for discrimination.

In North Syracuse Central Sch. Dist. v. NY State Div. of Human Rights,
supra, a case involving severe racial bullying of a young girl, the
Court of Appeals indicated that persons aggrieved by discrimination in
public education are not without recourse. For example, New York
Education Law § 310 provides that a grievance may be filed with the
Commissioner of Education. However, none of these avenues of complaint
provide what private school students currently enjoy - an
administrative State forum where individual victims of bullying,
harassment and other discrimination are able to receive actual
compensation for the harms done to them.  In her strong dissent to
North Syracuse Central Sch. Dist. v. N Y.

State Div. of Human Rights, Judge Ciparick noted that:  It is
antithetical to the purpose of the Human Rights Law to exempt public
schools from its mandate. We have noted that discrimination is "all
the more invidious" when practiced by state run entities (Koerner v
State of NY, Pilgrim Psychiatric Ctr., 62 N.Y.2d 442, 448 (1984). The
clear and express intent of the Human Rights Law is to protect "every
individual" in the state from the evils of discrimination.

Accordingly, the extension of coverage through the addition of a
definition of "educational institution" to include public as well
private schools, would ensure that the education provisions of the
Human Rights Law fulfill the intended purpose of the law.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :

This bill was previously introduced in the 2009-2010 session as
A.11563/S.8436; in the 2011-12 session as A.8094/S.5823 and the
2013-14 session as A.6807/S.4606

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :

None.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
Immediately.