NYC Commission on Human Rights boosts enforcement under Malalis
When Carmelyn Malalis was appointed to lead the New York City Commission on Human Rights in November 2014, the agency had come under scrutiny for what Public Advocate Letitia James called a “moribund agency culture” and a track record of “lax enforcement.”
Sixteen months later, Malalis can point to evidence of a revamped office, from a growing number of investigations to higher penalties to enforcement efforts on a number of new fronts.
Malalis attributed the turnaround to improved collaboration between the two major bureaus of her office: law enforcement and community outreach. The commission enforces the city’s sweeping civil rights legislation, which prohibits a long and growing list of discriminatory practices.
“We are now working much more so as one agency so that information on all parts of the agency are connecting and we’re able to capitalize information we’re receiving from different community groups to make sure that’s our focus in law enforcement,” Malalis told City & State in a recent video interview. “That’s also why we’re seeing numbers in law enforcement go up.”
In 2015, Malalis’ first full calendar year on the job, the commission opened 824 discrimination investigations, nearly 200 more than the 628 cases opened the year before. The commission more than doubled the average dollar amount collected for discrimination victims, to $21,806 in 2015, up from $9,725 in 2014. Additionally, the commission ramped up investigations of discrimination by landlords and put new resources into disability access and gender identity protection.
Several new city laws that went into effect in 2015 have also expanded the role of the Commission on Human Rights. The Stop Credit Discrimination in Employment Act made it illegal to check the credit history of job applicants. The Fair Chance Act made it illegal to ask about an applicant’s criminal history until a conditional offer of employment has been made.
Malalis said the Fair Chance Act will put the emphasis on an applicant’s qualifications and experience instead of any criminal history. She said the legislation still allows employers to adequately vet potential employees to see whether they have a serious criminal record.
“They’re really getting consideration to make sure that whatever that criminal history information is really has a direct enough relationship to the position in question or poses some sort of unreasonable risk to the public that it really makes it that it doesn’t make sense for that employment relationship to go forward,” Malalis said. “But they’ve found that person qualified enough where they like that person enough for the position in the first place to offer the job.”
This year the commission also became the first in any major U.S. city to begin helping undocumented immigrants who are victims of a crime obtain a U and T visa, which were created in 2000 to encourage the reporting of crimes to law enforcement.
“Actually issuing a visa is only within the province of the U.S. government,” Malalis noted. “Actual visas are things that the commission cannot issue. What the commission issues are certifications, which are basically the first step in that visa certification process.”
“What we find at the commission, now, there are situations in which those types of crimes have direct relationships to claims that one would make under the city human rights law,” she added.
Malalis was one of de Blasio’s last major appointees, having been appointed by the mayor near the end of his first year in office. When asked, she declined to say whether she would have liked to have been installed earlier.
“It’s really just about looking forward,” she said. “I will say we just came out with our annual report … and if folks look at that, the stats across the board, a lot has gone up.”