Early last month, amid the ongoing controversy sparked by North Carolina’s anti-transgender legislation, the New York State Assembly passed the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act (GENDA). The Act aims to protect New Yorkers from discrimination in housing, education, and employment based on their gender identity or expression. Presently, both New York and Federal law lack such […]

Last weekend, a group of determined NYU undergrads staged a 30-hour occupation of NYU’s Kimmel Center for University Life. The students, members of the Incarceration to Education Coalition (IEC), presented a simple demand: Ban the Box! Like many universities, NYU still asks applicants questions about their criminal and educational disciplinary histories. Literally, such questions appear next to […]

Bureaucracy is boring. “Regulatory Plans,” “Notice and Comment,” “Final Rules”—the Administrative State tends to glaze eyes. But for a moment last July, the media set its gaze on bureaucracy. That’s because a bureaucratic agency, the Department of Labor, proposed a rule that could increase the wages of millions of workers. Specifically, the DOL proposal makes […]

There are several ways to get at this question. The campaign gristmills produce ample material –comments to the press, debate statements, stump speeches, tweets, YouTube videos. And, of course, with a few notable exceptions, most candidates have some legislative record. Several commentators have already sifted through this content to discern positions on pay equity (including, […]

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The Month’s purpose, according to a recent Presidential Proclamation, is to refocus the public on “forg[ing] an America where no one suffers the hurt and hardship that domestic violence causes.” Prompted in part by this message, the public has once again turned its attention to the most publicized corporate […]

Earlier this month, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act—a bill requiring employers with at least 15 employees to provide 10 days of paid vacation. The Bill currently has a whopping 0 co-sponsors, which is exactly the same number of co-sponsors Representative Alan Grayson’s Paid Vacation Act (a similar bill) received in the […]

On April 15, thousands of workers and their allies rallied for better wages.  The Fight for $15 has expanded from a small group of fast food workers to thousands of retail employees, child care workers, home care providers, and adjunct professors. Indeed, news outlets are now reporting on how presidential campaigns will respond to the […]

Recently, the California Supreme Court posthumously granted Hong Yen Chang admission to the California Bar – reversing a 125-year-old decision that denied his application because of his race and national origin. (Read the Court’s decision here; read more about the case here, here, and here.) Chang was born in China and immigrated to the United […]

In a belated celebration of Valentine’s Day, I want to tell a love story. But don’t worry, this won’t get mawkish. This is a story of modern love, of commercial love, of a four-letter (sometimes, three-letter) slogan (“love” or “LUV”) perverted to discriminatory ends. (This also an aviation tale, and if you haven’t read my […]

This Sunday we will watch advertisements. We will see ads from an Official Pizza Sponsor (Papa John’s); an Official Dip Sponsor (Sabra Humus), an Official Chip and Dip Sponsor (Tostitos), and of course, an Official Beer Sponsor (Anheuser Busch). But among the gimmicks and cameos filling million-dollar ad slots, at least one ad will grab […]