New York State Assembly Bill A00501 represents a pivotal change in the state's approach to handling discrimination cases. Historically, the timeframe for raising claims under the New York State Human Rights Law was restricted - only 90 days for court proceedings against the government and a maximum of one year for bringing issues to the Division of Human Rights, with the sole exception of sexual harassment cases. The introduction of this bill, however, marks a significant shift, extending the statute of limitations to three years across the board for filings with the Division of Human Rights for claims against both private and public entities. This is biggest for education discrimination lawsuits that often were capped at a one year lookback period. 

Increased Access to Justice: The extension from one year to three years dramatically broadens the opportunity for individuals who have experienced discrimination to seek legal redress against the government. This is particularly crucial in cases where the complexity of the situation or the victims' circumstances might delay the decision to pursue legal action.

Benefit to School Discrimination Cases: The most notable impacts of this bill will be in the context of school systems. Previously, students or parents alleging discrimination had a mere year to initiate legal action. The extension to three years provides a more reasonable timeframe to prepare and pursue these important cases.

Click here to read Bill A00501.

• Definition and scope of automated decision tools.
• Requirement for annual disparate impact analyses to assess potential discrimination.
• Mandate for transparency and public reporting of the analyses.
• Obligation for landlords to notify applicants when such tools are used.
• Empowerment of the Attorney General and Commissioner to investigate and act upon violations.

On October 30th, 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order (EO) addressing discrimination caused by artificial intelligence (AI), amongst other topics. 

The White House announced this EO in seeking to prevent AI from leading to and deepening discrimination, bias, and other issues in justice, healthcare, and housing. 

Now, agencies will be empowered to combat algorithmic discrimination, while enforcing existing authorities to protect anti-discrimination rights and safety. 

In summary, the Executive Order: 

• Calls for clear guidelines to keep AI algorithms from being used to exacerbate discrimination by landlords, Federal benefits programs, and Federal contractors.
• Tackles algorithmic discrimination through training, technical assistance, and coordinates with the Department of Justice and Federal civil rights offices for best practices to investigate and prosecute AI civil rights violations.
• Ensures fairness throughout the criminal justice system by developing best practices for the use of AI in sentencing, parole and probation, pretrial release and detention, risk assessments, surveillance, crime forecasting and predictive policing, and forensic analysis.

The Biden Administration Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights sets out steps those using AI can take to ensure fairness and equality. The steps include regularly checking for and addressing any biases in the design and use of AI systems, using diverse and representative data to avoid discrimination or unfair impacts, ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities during the design and development of AI systems, conducting tests to identify and address any disparities before and after the AI system is in use, providing clear oversight from organizations to ensure fairness, and conducting independent evaluations and sharing easy-to-understand reports, including test results and how any issues are being addressed, to ensure these protective measures are in place.

If companies fail to comply and use AI incorrectly to deepen discrimination and bias, this Executive Order will become the basis for discrimination lawsuits as a result of the incorrect use.

To learn more about the Executive Order click here. To read the Biden Administration Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights click here. 

On October 25th, 2023 Governor Hochul signed A05010 to amend New York State's education law to prohibit religious private school and non-religious private schools from using corporal punishment on students. This amendments is effective as of October 25th, 2023. 

The bill discusses how every two years, the US Department of Education asks every public school in the country to report on the number of students it has physically punished during the previous year. In an analysis of that data it was revealed that males, young persons of color and students diagnosed with a disability are significantly more likely to be the victims of this abuse by their teachers and school administrators.

If you are  male, person of color, or have been diagnosed with a disability and received corporal punishment at a private school in New York within the last year, you may have a claim for discrimination under New York City Human Rights Law ("NYS Human Rights Law").  

If you are a male, person of color, or have been diagnosed with a disability and received corporal punishment at a private school in New York not within a year you may still have a national claim. 

For males who were enrolled in a religious private school in the last 3 years you may be able to submit gender discrimination claim under Title VI claim. However, Title VI does not include emotional distress damages.  

For persons of color who were enrolled in a private school in the last 4 years you may be able to bring a disparate treatment case, under 1981 and get emotional distress damages. You may also be able to submit a Title VI claim but this won't include emotional distress damages. 

For persons with a diagnosed disability who were enrolled in a private school in the last 3 years you may be able to bring a claim under the Americans with Disability Act and are not limited to non-emotional distress damages. 

If you are not a New York resident you still may have a national claim under Title VI, 1981, and/or Americans with Disability Act. Check your state's local laws to see if you potentially have a claim under state law. 

To read more about this amendment to the education law click here.