Publications

Welcome to our HRMinute. Today I want to talk about new legal enforcement guidance from the New York City Commission on Human Rights (NYCCHR) regarding race discrimination on the basis of hair. Hair has been in the discrimination world for a long time, but most notably with respect to religious discrimination. However, the city commission on human rights in February issued new legal guidance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of natural hair or hairstyles most closely associated with black people. And they define black people as those who identify as African, African-American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latin, and some others. Really what the NYCCHR is saying is that a lot of grooming policies that prohibit an individual from maintaining what they call a “natural hairstyle,” treated or untreated, such as twists, braids, afros, and the right to keep hair uncut or untrimmed, would be discriminatory on the basis of race. The view is that such policies really come from a standard that hairstyles associated with black people are messy or unkempt. So to be clear, make sure that any of your grooming policies comply with the most recent guidance from the City Commissioner of Human Rights. Andrew Singer, Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt. Thank you.