The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, has banned discrimination against a person’s weight and height in NYC. The mayor on Friday signed into law a bill that outlaws discriminating against an individual in employment, housing, and public accommodations on account of their weight and height, Fox News reports.
“I’m a person that believes in health, so when you talk about not discriminating against someone because of their body type, it’s not fighting against obesity; it’s just being fair,” Adams said. “So I think this is the right thing to do. We’re going to continue to talk about our progressive health agenda. Science has shown body type is not a connection to if you’re healthy or unhealthy, and I think that’s a misnomer we are really dispelling.”
Based on the new development, the Commission on Human Rights in the city of New York will entertain complaints of race, gender, age, weight, and height among others that border on discrimination from the human rights perspective. But antagonists of the bill said it will create lawsuits for lawyers to thrash in the courts, with New York City council minority leader Joseph Borelli saying the bill will empower people to sue anyone and everything.
While an opinion piece in New York Post called the controversial bill “a fat gift to NYC’s bottom-feeding legal sharks,” Borelli said people should not feel sorry for him in the light of the new bill, agreeing that he is overweight. “I’m overweight, but I’m not a victim,” he said. “No one should feel bad for me except my struggling shirt buttons.”
Lawmakers in other US states are also considering implementing the same law in their domains. There are reports that New Jersey and Massachusetts may do so very soon, but states like Michigan, Washington State, and Washington DC banned it. Interestingly enough, academics in universities have raised their voice against the use of the word “fatphobia” and even “obesity,” arguing that it is a cultural stigmatization that contradicts the concept of “health justice.”