Photo: Mariela Lombard / El Diario NY
NYC expanded its anti-hair discrimination law to include styles and accessories inspired by people’s religious customs.
The city’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) approved rules in 2019 that prohibit employers from engaging in hair discrimination on the basis of race, focusing primarily on styles and hair textures of African Americans. But revised rules adopted by the HRC extend those protections to people who comb their hair or cover their heads for religious reasons, from Rastafarian manes to turbans, hijab or kippah.
In addition, the new rules leave the door open to investigate “discrimination based on hair on the basis of disability, gender , age, or other protected status under New York City Human Rights Law. ”
The law also explicitly covers Native American hairstyles. Violators could face fines of up to $ 250 thousand dollars
Examples of discrimination that could be discriminated against under the HRC include: a employer who dismisses a worker who converts to a different faith and begins to wear religious hats to partially or completely cover his hair; a landlord who refuses to rent to a tenant because he combs his hair in dreadlocks; and who orders a worker to cut or hide his hairstyle or facial hair.
“There is a widespread and fundamentally racist belief that black hairstyles are not suitable for formal settings and can be unsanitary, messy, disruptive or careless”, recalled the agency, cited New York Post .