Nurse asks about federal rollbacks, dual filing, disparate impact, and state cooperation

Thank you for that.

And as you mentioned, we know the priorities for the federal government has shifted.

It seems like we don't have priorities for civil and human rights.

Can you speak to three areas of how this has impacted your work, specifically

when it comes to dual filing agreements, what happens instead?

And what is CCHR doing now that the federal government is not pursuing disparate impact cases?

And if you're now expanding cooperation with the state human rights divisions?

Yeah, I'll start with just the federal government and the EEOC and HUD in particular.

So as you've noted, disparate impact is actually being taken away at the federal level.

It is embedded into the city human rights law, so we will continue to pursue those cases.

But we did make a decision last year to step away from a contract with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I will say the contract that we had were for dual filing cases.

So if someone came to us, they would preserve a federal claim.

It was never enough money to sustain staffing at CCHR.

And we think the tradeoff of losing the small amount of money there is that we're protecting the identity of New Yorkers, right?

If you're dual filing with the federal government, they can access your case data.

That is something we don't feel comfortable with at this point in time.

Individuals, though, can still choose to file federal claims in court or go directly to the EEOC.

So we haven't, you know, I think it changes what people, the decisions people make when they come to us.

But generally, we think it's a net positive for New Yorkers that are filing.

I think on just disparate impact, generally, I mentioned already some of the comments that we've been working on.

They relate to HUD and disparate impact.

They relate to HHS and gender and really seeking.

ways to preserve what are the protections in the city human rights law.

And I think, you know, on the enforcement side, we have cases that are in litigation also addressing some of these claims.

And then just cooperation with the state human rights division.

Yeah, so I think we have pursued that previously, but definitely in conversation more with the state, their resources have also grown and thinking about

not only on education and outreach, but potentially in the case arena, how we can collaborate.

But nothing has been landed on yet.

We have been working on an MOU.

I don't know the exact status, but we are already sharing information in general on trends, and we do a lot of events together.

So there's a kind of ongoing partnership.