New York City is set to ban weight discrimination

NEW YORK – New York City is set to become the largest United States city to ban discrimination based on a person’s weight.

On Thursday, the New York City Council approved a Bill that adds a person’s weight to the list of characteristics that are protected from discrimination, along with race, gender, age, religion and sexual orientation.

The law would prohibit employers and businesses from discriminating in employment, housing and access to public accommodations.

Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who wrote a book about losing 15.9kg on a plant-based diet, has not committed to signing the Bill but has been supportive of the effort.

“We should never treat people differently because of their weight,” Mr Adams said at a news conference in April.

The Bill, which was approved by 44 of the City Council’s 51 members, is part of a growing national campaign to address weight discrimination, with lawmakers in New Jersey and Massachusetts considering similar measures.

Michigan and Washington state already prohibit it, as do some cities, like Washington.

State lawmakers in New York are also considering a weight discrimination law.

Some business leaders and Republicans had expressed concerns about the Bill, including Ms Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group, who said that it would be yet another onerous mandate for companies and that enforcement would ultimately be left to the courts, placing a burden on employers, regulators and the judicial system.

The Bill’s sponsor, Mr Shaun Abreu, a council member from northern Manhattan who said that he gained weight during the Covid-19 pandemic, said he hoped the law would raise awareness about treating heavier people with respect.

He said he was confident that the mayor would sign the Bill because his office helped negotiate the details with him.

“This vote is more than just providing a legal remedy to bring claims against employers and landlords for using weight as a factor,” said Mr Abreu.

“It’s also about changing the culture in how we think about weight.”

The city has been a centre for fat activism since at least the 1960s, when a crowd of 500 people held a “fat in” at Central Park.

Carrying banners that said “Fat Power”, the group raised concerns about discrimination that advocates said have persisted for decades.

“Anti-fatness doesn’t just break our hearts; it drains our wallets, steals our opportunities and limits our lives,” Ms Tigress Osborn, chair of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, a non-profit advocacy group, said earlier in 2023 at a City Council hearing on the Bill.

The Bill also prohibits discrimination based on height, and a separate Bill would ban discrimination against people with tattoos.

It creates exemptions for certain circumstances, including when a person’s height or weight could hamper carrying out the essential skills of a job.

Some jobs, such as police officer and firefighter, for example, have physical requirements such as a timed run or climbing over a 1.8m barrier.

Under the Bill, complaints about weight discrimination would be investigated by the city’s Commission on Human Rights, which already handles complaints over race, gender and pregnancy.

Some workers have unsuccessfully filed lawsuits over weight discrimination in the past, including a bus driver in New Jersey who lost his job after failing a medical exam and a New York City firefighter who was told to lose 32kg in 30 days.

At the City Council hearing, New Yorkers testified about being discriminated against because of their weight.

A student at New York University said that desks in classrooms were too small for her, preventing her from taking notes. A soprano at the Metropolitan Opera said she had faced body shaming and pressure to develop an eating disorder or to get bariatric surgery.

Ms Osborn celebrated the Bill’s approval on Thursday and said that it sent a message to the rest of the world that size discrimination was a “serious injustice”.

“It’s time for lawmakers across the country to ensure that everybody and every body is protected under the law and has equal opportunity,” she said. NYTIMES