Comprehensive 1991 Amendments

NYC Human Rights Law

Local Law 39 of 1991 was a comprehensive set of amendments to the New York City Human Rights Law.

These amendments were intended to maximize both individual and vicarious responsibility for discriminatory conduct, and substantially expanded the reach of the law, the tools for enforcing it, and the penalties for violating it.

Unfortunately, despite the command in the legislative history to interpret the law independently from state and federal civil rights enactments, judges continued to treat the City Human Rights Law as nothing more than a carbon copy of its state and federal counterparts.

As stated in the Committee Report accompanying the Restoration Act, that 2005 measure “aim[ed] to ensure construction of the City’s human rights law in line with the purposes of fundamental amendments to the law enacted in 1991.”  As such, it is essential to understand the sea change that the comprehensive 1991 amendments were intended to produce.

Legislative history of Comprehensive 1991 Ammendments:

Full Text of Local Law 39 of 1991
The full text of the law, showing additions and deletions from previously existing New York City Human Rights Law, also available at 1991 New York city Legislative Annual 145-81.
Committee Report
“Intro 465-A,” the bill that became Local Law 39 of 1991, was approved by the City Council’s Committee on General Welfare, which then sent the bill to the full Council accompanied by a Committee Report.
Mayor’s Statement
The remarks by then-Mayor Dinkins at a June 18, 1991 public hearing prior to his signing the bill. These remarks included his statement that, “The new law takes the fundamental step of making all people legally responsible for their own discriminatory conduct.”
Contemporaneous Comparison Memorandum
A comparison memorandum included in the New York Legislative Annual of 1991 (at pages 186-88), which memorandum features some of the notable changes brought about by Local Law 39 of 1991. Note: the “current law” and “new law” statements on disparate impact are transposed.