Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the author (photo: Rodneyse Bichotte/Facebook)
Abortion is a matter of life and death for a woman. Those who are pro-choice like me know that access to safe abortion care can prevent a woman from losing her life, and restrictions can - and are - ending it. And for Black women like me, who know what it’s like to lose a child because of maternal healthcare inequities, this is a nightmare that’s only going to get worse.
Women pioneers fought tirelessly to grant us suffrage, reproductive freedom, and other essential rights. But today our rights are being stripped away and we cannot let that happen.
Access to safe, quality, and unbiased health care for pregnant Black women has always been challenging -- and now access to a safe abortion, a woman’s civil right, has essentially been eliminated in Texas. With the Lone Star State outlawing abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, in the midst of another spike in covid with the Delta variant, risks to women’s health -- in particular Black women’s health -- have been further exacerbated.
Data shows there has already been a longstanding Black maternal healthcare crisis.
Last year, more than 700 women in the United States died during childbirth and the maternal death rate among Black women was three times the rates for white and Hispanic women. Maternal mortality is worse in the United States than in any other developed nation in the world. The majority of pregnancy-related deaths are thought to be preventable.
I was almost one of the victims of pregnancy-related death.
Almost five years ago, a prestigious university-affiliated New York City hospital turned me away after doctors discovered I was three centimeters dilated and experiencing preterm labor. Shortly after I was told to leave, my water broke, and I delivered my son Jonah prematurely at a local community hospital. My baby was one of the more than 20,000 infants that didn’t make it that year, and I almost lost my life too.
At all stages of health care, women -- especially Black women -- deserve better care and protection of our rights.
Despite Black women making up just 13.4% of the U.S. population, almost one-third of the women affected by the Hyde Amendment -- which prohibits the use of Medicaid funds for abortion care except in the most extreme cases -- are Black. "There has been a growing body of research that is showing that structural racism is playing a role with regard to these disparities," said Dr. Wanda Barfield, director of the CDC's Division of Reproductive Health.
This isn’t just about saving lives. It’s about taking away rights and decision-making power from the people to whom they rightfully belong.
It’s unconstitutional and inhumane. But, even though the Supreme Court declined to block the Texas law it did so without ruling on whether it is constitutional, allowing it to be challenged.
Access to reproductive health care is everything when it comes to saving the lives of women, overwhelmingly so in the case of Black women.
Texas’ law does more than just take choice away from women; it puts a bounty on the heads of every woman and family seeking an abortion in the state, and allows private individuals to enforce the law. If we look at other countries as a guide, or even our own history, the Texas abortion law won’t stop most women from having abortions, even though it strips their legal rights and puts their lives more at risk. It will mainly stop women who can’t afford to access abortion care from getting it safely, leading to the preventable deaths of more women.
This is part of a national attack on women.
The Republican-dominated Supreme Court of the United States has opted not to intervene, effectively reversing Roe v. Wade in Texas and opening it to reversal elsewhere. But this is ‘settled law,’ as Justice Brett Kavanaugh claimed at his 2018 nomination hearing, before flip-flopping earlier this month. And, the risk of other conservative states using the legal loophole Texas is exploiting is real. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to reverse Roe and nothing short of an attack on women and our rights.
But, the Texas abortion law isn’t the first threat to abortion access. Since Justice Kavanaugh’s appointment, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case known as June Medical, which illustrated that reliance on courts and precedent alone is not enough, legislative interventions are also needed to protect our rights.
Meanwhile, in stark contrast, Mexico’s Supreme Court -- in a heavily Roman Catholic country -- has ruled that criminal penalties for abortion are unconstitutional.
With the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation, how can there be legislators in the United States out there claiming to be “pro life” as they exacerbate this crisis?
As the new Chair of the Task Force on Women’s Issues in the New York State Assembly and a Black woman who has faced pregnancy-related death, I am committed to reversing this cycle of morbidity for all women. I’m focused on ensuring that Black pregnant women aren’t dying at an alarming rate well above the national average and that all women have the right and access to abortion care.
In the New York Legislature, I passed a bill requiring hospitals to treat women in preterm labor. I’ve introduced several bills to expand testing for conditions like the one I had, barbarically termed an “incompetent cervix,” which are known to lead to preterm labor.
Several of my colleagues have also taken steps to address the significant racial disparity of Black women dying at a higher rate. New York City Council Member Vanessa Gibson announced more than $400,000 in Council funding to combat high rates of infant and maternal mortality in the Bronx.
Democrats across the country need to follow suit.
If our nation had equitable health care and defended women’s rights on par with that of other developed nations, we could prevent the loss of life without controversy. We could let women and their doctors make choices that are best for them, and we could save lives.
We need to fight to preserve the lives of women who are facing increasingly worse odds in labor and the delivery room. Governor Kathy Hochul, in response to Texas’ backwards law, announced that New York will implement a public information campaign to affirm abortion rights, curb the spread of misinformation, and make abortion care more accessible via telehealth.
And as the first woman to lead the Brooklyn Democratic Party, I’m calling on Democrats from across the nation to hold Republicans accountable for stripping away our rights and causing the senseless deaths of women and their children.
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Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn is the New York State Assemblymember for the 42nd District in Brooklyn and the first woman to chair the Brooklyn Democratic Party. She is Chair of the Assembly’s Task Force on Women’s Issues and Task Force on Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses. She sponsored the Jonah Bichotte Cowan law and now sponsors two bills -- A8048 and A7741 -- related to prenatal testing. On Twitter @AMBichotte.
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Kids back at school (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
Coinciding with the start of the school year, New York City parents got some good news last week when Mayor de Blasio launched the city’s first universal baby bonds program. Starting this year, every public-school kindergartener will receive access to a college savings account seeded with $100 from the city.
This is great. Making college more accessible and affordable, especially to low-income students, must be a major policy goal and will certainly help overcome the widening wealth gap.
But money now is better than money later and more can be done to help kids throughout their childhood, years before they enter college campuses.
No doubt, the benefits of baby bonds are clear. Children with even a small savings account are three times more likely to enroll in college and more than four times more likely to graduate. And with average student loan debt soaring to $30,000 per graduate, leveling the playing field by helping kids pay for college will give students opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t have had. More than this, expanding college access will reap plenty of residual effects on health, safety, and economic stability for communities in the long run.
All these benefits are great, but why make kids wait until they turn 18 to reap them? Instead of delaying gratification, we should be giving families direct cash assistance now so that they avoid a life of poverty and are even more prepared to enter college when the time comes to take the money out of their college accounts. After all, students from low-income families are 10 times more likely to drop out of college than students from high-income families. Helping families out of poverty now will pay dividends in ensuring kids are able to enter and stay in higher education.
No matter your thoughts on our campaign, as an advisor on Andrew Yang’s run for mayor, there was one policy we undoubtedly got right: cash relief for poor families. Under our plan of providing up to $2,000 annually to the city’s 500,000 poorest residents regardless of immigration status, the city would have reduced deep poverty by 60% according to an independent study.
Time and again direct cash assistance programs have proven to be a game changer in uplifting people out of poverty. And cash stimulus checks from the federal government during the pandemic were shown to have significantly improved Americans’ ability to buy food and pay household bills and to have reduced anxiety and depression. Research has shown that cash transfers also have stimulative effects with recipients spending 44.5% of the federal check amount back into the local economy within just 10 days.
Direct cash assistance isn’t new. Social Security checks lift 15 million elderly Americans out of poverty every year and form one of the most effective anti-poverty programs the United States has ever devised. Due in part to the pandemic and the popularization of the concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), policymakers are coming to understand that simply giving poor families the cash they need to provide for themselves and make sound financial decisions is more productive than the old ways of complex -- and costly -- food stamps and housing voucher programs, which often kept people poor and perpetuated problematic ideals of who is “deserving.”
The truth is New Yorkers should be entitled to a suite of modern policies targeted at uplifting them. That is why it is encouraging to see Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams’ plan to expand the city’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program, which would cover nearly 900,000 New Yorkers with household incomes up to $50,000 a year. EITC on the federal level has been shown to improve children’s educational and financial outcomes as adults. Under an Adams mayoralty, these direct cash credits to families will go a long way in helping families and children over the course of their lifetimes.
Whether it’s UBI, EITC, or some other acronym, the goal should be the same: getting cash into families' pockets today so that they can equip themselves with the tools to succeed. And while college savings accounts are fantastic, our policymakers should make sure kids are getting everything they need to help them now, not just when it comes time to go for college.
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Erika Tannor is a political consultant at Tusk Strategies. On Twitter @erikatannor.
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Gov. Hochul leads a press conference on abortion rights (photo: Don Pollard/Governor’s Office)
In response to the recent ban in Texas and upcoming Supreme Court case, Governor Kathy Hochul declared New York a safe harbor for abortion care at a rally on September 13. Hochul noted, rightly, that the state has an obligation to fully implement the 2019 Reproductive Health Act (RHA). To that end, she directed state agencies to launch public information campaigns directed at patients and providers about their rights and responsibilities under the RHA.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand followed by voicing her support for the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify a right to abortion care into federal law, just as the RHA does in New York State.
These pronouncements of solidarity with people in Texas and other legally restrictive states are welcome first steps. As the right to safe, legal abortion nationwide hangs in the balance, however, reactive measures are no longer enough—if New York is to become a safe harbor for abortion, officials at every level of government must champion bold, proactive policies that pre-empt attacks from the powerful anti-abortion movement.
First, they must make abortion, and all forms of sexual and reproductive health care, accessible to all New Yorkers.
In 1994, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective defined reproductive justice as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”
For decades, the fight for reproductive justice in City Hall and Albany has been relegated to a small handful of electeds and constituent activists. Access to abortion care isn’t simply a “women’s issue,” but City Hall and Albany continue to treat it as one. Marginalized New Yorkers, particularly the Black birthing people at the forefront of the reproductive justice movement whose communities are disproportionately affected by our collective inaction, know that abortion access is a social, economic, gender, and racial issue.
In New York City alone, there are at least 11 “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are fake health clinics that use lies and unauthorized medical practices to dissuade vulnerable birthing people from getting abortions. Anti-abortion extremists in Queens are now allowed, thanks to the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals, to terrorize New Yorkers who try to access or provide reproductive health care in clinics.
While our city became the first in the nation to provide direct funding for abortion, the $250,000 that the City Council has set aside the last two budget cycles for the New York Abortion Access Fund isn’t nearly enough to cover the up-to-$3,000 cost of abortion care for low-income and uninsured New Yorkers, let alone out-of-state birthing people.
These are some of the many hurdles New Yorkers face in accessing abortion care, and abortion care is only one piece of the larger problem. Systemic racism in health care for pregnant and birthing New Yorkers, inadequate postpartum care and early childcare, stigmatizing, outdated sex-ed, the proliferation of gender-based and sexual violence—we could go on—are just some of the others. In the spirit of reproductive justice, we cannot talk about shoring up abortion access in New York without also talking about the persisting inequities in all facets of sexual and reproductive health care.
Now that we face an impending national crisis, one that many marginalized communities have already been facing for years, New Yorkers are looking for ways to join the fight. Using our collective experience, knowledge, and skill sets, we’ve put together a non-comprehensive action guide that outlines steps New York elected and government officials can take, at every level and in almost all offices, to truly make New York a safe harbor for abortion care.
The guide also includes graphics and call transcripts that everyday New Yorkers can use in their activism.
Finally, it’s past time for New Yorkers to elect more reproductive justice advocates to office.
The anti-abortion movement has spent millions to help elect extremists who champion their cause in state legislatures and city governments across the country. Yes, greater gender representation, as seen in our first woman Governor, and New York City’s first women-majority City Council come January, could result in more substantive gender representation in New York politics as well. But simply electing more women to power doesn’t necessarily ensure those political leaders will focus on reproductive justice. As it stands, champions of reproductive justice are still largely on the outskirts of political power.
The country faces the biggest threat to Roe v. Wade in decades. It’s incumbent on New York to set the example for other progressive cities and states that could face an influx of out-of-state patients seeking abortion care. We must elect candidates to office who are committed to making that possible. If we succeed, we can show purple and red cities and states, particularly those on the verge of securing Democratic wins in their legislative or executive offices, that reproductive justice advocates can run and win.
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Astrid Aune is a community organizer and 1L at CUNY School of Law. Elizabeth Adams is a Legislative Director at the New York City Council, formerly served as the Director of Government Relations at Planned Parenthood of NYC and was a candidate for City Council in Brooklyn’s 33rd District. Jessica Madris is a freelance reporter and writer covering gender policy, particularly at the local level, with an MPA in Urban Social Policy and Gender and Public Policy and experience in city government and politics, and a postpartum doula in Brooklyn.
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High school students (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)
This month, as our children return for another pandemic school year, there has never been a more important time to have an honest conversation about mental health.
As a member of the New York Assembly Committee on Education, I have heard from countless parents and young people about how the pandemic has exacerbated the pre-existing psychological strains of depression and anxiety. These come on top of the pressures youth have faced for years, from navigating identity issues to combating bullying.
Unfortunately, kids, families, and schools don’t always have the training or resources to cope with these challenges or pinpoint when they become dangerously unmanageable. It is long past time to equip our schools with the tools they need to provide appropriate mental health resources, support at-risk populations and, most critically, prevent suicide.
Students today are significantly more likely to report poor mental health compared to previous generations. Between 2007 and 2016, pediatric emergency room visits for mental health concerns rose 60%. Suicide is now the second-leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 24, and LGBTQ youth are especially at-risk. Of the nearly 40% of transgender Americans who report attempting suicide, 92% have done so before the age of 25.
Preventing youth suicide isn't just an intellectual issue for me. I tried to take my life as a young person. Looking back, I recognize that I was facing profound stress related to identity and isolation. Thankfully, I made it through that dark period and have gone on to lead a meaningful, successful life.
For me, having a support system was key to my mental health recovery. Kids can express vulnerability when surrounded by people they trust. That’s why I have introduced the Student Suicide Prevent Act (A7762), which will give schools the support they need to reach students of all experiences and backgrounds. It provides a framework for teacher training, mental health resources, and policies and procedures for suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. The legislation draws on national models while creating space for schools to tailor information to align with local needs.
Right now, 19 states require suicide prevention training for school personnel, and 13 states specify that this training take place annually. New York is one of 15 states that encourages, but doesn’t mandate, such programming. Our lack of leadership has important consequences: a third of our schools do not have suicide prevention policies in place, and only 2% of existing policies specifically address LGBTQ youth.
Teachers are often resources for kids who feel isolated. They spend hours every day with their students and develop deep relationships by offering advice and helping them build self-esteem. As a result, they are often the first, and the ones best able, to see when our kids need extra help.
Their insight is especially important because not everyone who is suffering withdraws or disengages from school activities -- what we commonly associate with signs of struggling. I was the president of my high school class, but I still needed help.
Talking about these issues, from both a policy and personal standpoint, is hard. I’ve never publicly shared my story before. But I know that open and honest communication is a necessary step to break the cycle and better help our youth. With the right policies in place, we can give youth the support they need to navigate challenging times, recognize their own strength, and see a better future ahead.
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Assembly Member Danny O’Donnell represents parts of Manhattan. On Twitter @Danny_ODonnell_.
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The Mayor at the UN (photo: Rob Bennett/Mayor's Office)
This week, New York City is welcoming the return of foreign dignitaries, NGOs, and representatives from all over the world for an in-person United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) high-level week. It’s the world’s premier global affairs engagement. A combination of ministerials, side events, and of course the General Debate, this year’s high-level week will focus heavily on accelerating COVID-19 recovery efforts and aggressively addressing climate change and its ravaging impact.
Notably, world leaders will also come together to address the past year’s racial reckoning in the United States and around the world at a timely meeting, "Reparations, racial justice and equality for people of African descent," recognizing the twentieth anniversary of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, and the subsequent signing of the Durban Declaration, which calls on countries to take concrete measures to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance.
Having supported and led planning efforts for several UNGA high-level weeks as a U.S. diplomat at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, high-level week has always been one of the most exciting, adrenaline-filled weeks of the year, and it is what makes being part of the diplomatic corps in New York so special.
This is a unique opportunity for countries large and small to have their say and shape the outcomes of collective action on the most important challenges we face as global citizens. It is also a crucial opportunity to advance the health, safety, and prosperity of New Yorkers, as hosts, to this significant diplomatic event.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and International Affairs Commissioner Penny Abeywardena have already set an important tone for the event by requiring vaccination for all those who wish to enter the United Nations halls and providing the resources to make it happen, a necessary and critical step to ensuring this year’s high-level week does not become a super-spreader event.
While the focus this week will be on the parade of presidents and prime ministers in New York City to advance their national and international agendas, we should not forget that New Yorkers have a stake in the success of these diplomatic engagements. There are incredible opportunities to deepen New York’s footprint on the world stage and to influence international policy that benefits New York and New Yorkers. In fact, it is high time to elevate the critical role of cities and states in our diplomacy and foreign affairs.
New York City, as host of the United Nations and epicenter of world finance and investment, is uniquely situated to become a leader in city diplomacy in this ever-evolving global arena. As New York engages in pandemic recovery efforts in 2021 and beyond, it will be crucial for the next mayoral administration, City Council, and state leadership to consider expanding engagement in international affairs as a means to support local success and take advantage of the many opportunities for New York to reclaim its leadership on the world stage.
There are several areas where current and incoming leadership for New York City — the Mayor, Comptroller, City Council, Governor, Attorney General, State Legislature, and others — can meaningfully expand New York’s global footprint in meaningful ways, while also including local communities and centering equity as a primary part of the effort.
1. Climate Change
Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams announced last week a trip to the Netherlands to explore the Dutch experience addressing climate change. This is subnational diplomacy at its best, bringing local leaders and expertise together in one room to share experiences and come up with viable solutions.
New York City has a unique lens and experience to present: mitigating climate change while fighting for climate justice, as it has become clear that the communities hardest hit by climate change have been the most marginalized. The devastating impact of Hurricane Ida on New Yorkers was a serious wake-up call to the acceleration of climate change; New York can advance its expertise and response by engaging globally.
2. Public Safety and Security
Cities can play a critical role in addressing hate and terrorism. The rise in violent white supremacy and anti-government hate, including that which the world witnessed in our nation’s capital on January 6, is a local as much as it is an international phenomenon. Moreover, it is exactly the kind of issue that can be addressed via a city diplomacy approach, working with local police, community leaders, and subnational and international actors to share common approaches and lessons. The Strong Cities Network can be a useful arena by which to approach.
3. Public Health
Look no further than the COVID-19 pandemic to understand the need for local responses to global health crises and the role that individuals, countries, cities, and states can play in averting global health challenges. From mask wearing to reopening schools to business practices, subnational diplomacy can improve perspectives and practices on public health.
Long gone are the days of conventional diplomacy that only existed between the foreign ministries of nations. This is because global issues are local issues, and thus, our diplomacy needs to be more people-centered and influenced by events happening on the ground. From equitable vaccine distribution during a once-in-a-generation pandemic to forging bonds with cities around the world in arrangements like C40 Cities, to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change, counties, city and state legislators, mayors and governors now sit at the nexus of global and local policy.
There is no better example to point to than the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate the impact of city diplomacy on everyday lives. Under the Trump Administration’s isolationist policies and its failure to command a federal response, it was up to city and state leaders to step up to the plate, engaging in ways we hadn’t before, including with international actors. I was one of them.
As State Committeewoman for the 85th District in the Bronx, I developed a mutual aid group alongside neighbors in the East Bronx and partnered with my local community and elected officials to obtain and distribute PPE, including distributing supplies that were received from abroad. And I was so proud to see our mayor and commissioner for international affairs accept the donation of 250,000 masks from the United Nations to support New York City health workers during the height of the pandemic in March 2020. These efforts had real impact on New Yorkers’ lives — in some cases it meant life or death.
Next Steps
Leadership in addressing climate change, local development, domestic terrorism, public safety, and food insecurity are as local as they are global and require the expertise of people on the ground, as well as the expert diplomats who convene and help create national and international policies on these issues. Imagine the collective experience, awareness raising, and impact that New York City could have when these forces are combined?
Specifically, city and state legislators, mayors, governors, and other local officials can level up their contributions to the global dialogue and play meaningful roles in building partnerships, sharing experiences, and making tangible progress on global issues; and Congress and the State Department can help bring this to fruition by establishing a city and state office for subnational diplomacy, and providing the necessary resources and support for cities to take on global engagement more intentionally.
Passing ”The City and State Diplomacy Act” introduced by U.S. Congressional Representatives Ted Lieu (D-CA), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and Joe Wilson (D-SC) would create the Office of Subnational Diplomacy. The new office, within the State Department, would be the connective tissue between the State Department and mayors, governors, and local officials across the country to more effectively address issues of global concern by facilitating local expertise.
City diplomacy is the X-factor for effective 21st century global engagement today. This is because, at its core, subnational diplomatic actors are closest to the challenges and have the local insights and experiences to help solve them. The fact of the matter is this: city diplomacy is happening – local leaders are engaging with their international counterparts in new and innovative ways. The question is how much the State Department and New York will be intentional in their pursuit to best apply those engagements to promote our values and policy priorities. And New York has a unique opportunity to be at the center of this evolving city diplomacy landscape and be a part of this defining moment in our history. Let’s not squander it.
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Emerita Torres is a former U.S. Diplomat (2009-2019), State Committeewoman for the 85th district in the Bronx, and Senior Research Fellow at The Soufan Center. On Twitter @EmeritaTorresNY.
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Fishkill (photo: ©2021 Google Maps)
After being in maximum security prisons for approximately 30 years, one day I found myself in a van headed toward a medium security prison called Fishkill Correctional Facility.
Looking back then, I remember seeing “Greenhaven,'' the maximum-security prison I was leaving behind and its imposing thirty-foot high fortress walls with guards patrolling the towers. Greenhaven has one of the largest populations of convicted people serving various kinds of sentences. More than half of the approximately 1,500 people there are serving life sentences.
In the upstate rural communities, “Lifers,” as they are called, are seen as golden calves for the local economies.
It’s part of why one out of every three people in New York state prisons has a life sentence, giving the state the third largest percentage of lifers across the country. Lifers tend to maintain a lock-step comradery as part of the larger prison landscape. Many carry the unpleasant reality, bred of common awareness, that the others “doing time” will inevitably be released and that their ability to reach that same moment may never be forthcoming.
This contextualization may help you understand the intrinsic familial bond that most Lifers seem to share. It may also help to explain why tears suddenly began to flow, and an overwhelming sense of sadness overcame me, after I turned around and saw Greenhaven’s 30-foot wall. It unexpectedly dawned on me that I was leaving behind family, individuals with whom I had shared harsh and at times precious memories over the course of many years.
This may also help to explain why then-Governor Andrew Cuomo's act of granting clemency to Paul Clark and five other Lifers whom I left behind at Greenhaven affected me so dearly. I took a long exhale as I learned the news. Paul's release, for one, made me recall the fateful day I looked back at the Greenhaven walls. That grim reminder made me aware that there were many more “Pauls” that I had left behind, who have worked to help others and have experienced an inner transformation that is worthy of a chance to be reunited with their family.
In his final week in office, with no political capital to lose, Governor Cuomo finally decided to grant executive clemency to six individuals convicted of violent crimes. These individuals had been incarcerated between 30 to 50 years, and were just languishing in harsh prison conditions. Well established data concluded that these men belonged to a vast pool of individuals who have the lowest recidivism rate. The travesty of this gift, however, was that there was not a single woman, countless of whom have undergone the very same transformations, included amongst those granted clemency.
Executive clemencies were never intended to be the only path to freedom for people who have changed or the sole mechanism in place that recognizes a bad act is not determinative of the trajectory of a human life. Nor is it apt to address the plight that concerns one group in particular that has significantly increased as the older overall prison population has declined: an elderly prison population with life sentences. There are two pieces of legislation before New York state lawmakers that would bring a lot more justice, hope, and humany to New York.
The first being the Elder Parole (S.15A/A.3475A) bill. This Act would vest the Parole Board with the authority to recall elderly people 55 or older who have served 15 or more years in prison for a parole interview, on a case-by-case basis. The second bill, the Fair and Timely Act (S.1415A/A.4231A), would focus the Parole Board’s attention on who a person is today, and not solely the worst thing they ever did.
After half a century of cultural punishment that produced excessive sentences, deficiencies in medical parole and executive clemencies, and the shrinkage in Parole Board releases, it’s time for New York lawmakers to pass these two bills immediately.
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Anthony Dixon is Director of Community Engagement at the Parole Preparation Project. On Twitter @ParolePrepNY.
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School food (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
As students have returned to the classrooms, back-to-school jitters are likely to be at an all-time high. Anxiety about everything from vaccination status to social status may be keeping kids and parents up at night, but covering the cost of school meals should not be a cause for concern.
This school year, the Biden administration has temporarily made all school meals free of charge, a change that advocates are pushing to make permanent. Federal legislation would enable public schools to provide every student with the tools they need to learn: not just teachers and textbooks, but also salads and sandwiches. Learning on an empty stomach is hard, but universal free meals could help fix that problem, making it easier for students to learn and thrive.
Permanently providing free school breakfast and lunch for all is fundamental to the promise of educational opportunity across the United States. Students from food-insecure families are less likely to succeed in school, but research shows that free meals improve academic performance and mental wellbeing. Universal meals can also improve health. Students who eat school meals every day have better diets than students who do not—they consume more fruits, vegetables, fiber, and whole grains, which in turn reduces their risk of diet-related diseases. Health care costs can drop, as can the costs schools pay per meal, because when stigma around school lunch decreases, participation increases.
Recognizing the benefits of universal meals, California and Maine recently passed legislation that makes school meals free for all students. If the federal government doesn’t make the current free school meal policy a permanent one, New York legislators should consider passing a policy like California’s or Maine’s.
In a state with such high living costs, many families struggle to cover the cost of school meals and food insecurity rates remain sky high. In practice, sympathetic school food staff often serve hungry kids food regardless of their ability to pay, which results in many families acquiring meal debt.
In August, state legislators took a step to address this issue, passing legislation that shields families from litigation for unpaid school meal fees. This new law keeps the matter of school lunches out of the courtroom, but it still permits schools to chase down parents for payment. It is time for a solution that in one fell swoop eliminates all these problems—school meals free for all students. That is the only way to spare students the shame of meal debt and schools the time spent pursuing the debt in the first place.
We’ve seen the very real benefits of accessible school meals in New York City, where we secured free breakfast and lunch for all public school students, regardless of income. This local policy change ensured that all students—including those who are homeless, in foster care, or have recently immigrated—do not fall through the cracks. Test scores in both English and math have risen and stigma has decreased. Research released in June shows that all students, regardless of income, reported a reduction in bullying and fighting and an overall better environment after New York City schools started serving meals free of charge.
All students across New York State deserve the benefits that universal school meals provide. With large school districts like New York City, Rochester, Yonkers, and Albany already providing universal meals, the state is well on its way to making free meals available to all.
The longer-term economic crisis stemming from COVID-19 will likely leave millions teetering on the brink of food insecurity for years to come. As students head back to school, lawmakers should think ahead. There should be no shame in needing food to fuel learning. The real shame would be missing the opportunity that covid has provided: to rethink school meals and make it easier for schools to serve students the meals they need to thrive.
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Liz Accles is Executive Director of Community Food Advocates and successfully led a coalition to secure universal free meals for all 1.1 million New York City public school students. Julia McCarthy is Senior Program Officer at New York State Health Foundation, where she is on the Healthy Food, Healthy Lives team, and is former Deputy Director of the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy.
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Ribbon-cutting and more ahead (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
It'd be foolish to bet against New York City, but a full and robust comeback from the COVID-19 crisis is not guaranteed without bold action. It’s increasingly clear that the city’s recovery isn’t like any other. Companies are delaying return to work plans, the 10.2% unemployment rate is among the highest of any major city in the country, and the rates of joblessness among New Yorkers of color and young adults are particularly alarming.
Meanwhile, no other city is coping with as many structural economic challenges brought on by the pandemic. The rise of remote work and the slow recovery of tourism to the ongoing disruption in retail and the severe blow dealt to the arts disproportionately threaten essential parts of New York’s economy.
Putting New York on course for a lasting and equitable recovery will not only require bold action, but also solutions that are new, innovative, and creative. Fortunately, the massive turnover in city government taking place in less than four months—as well as new leadership in Albany—presents an incredible opportunity to take critical steps toward recovery. We’ve already seen many primary election winners proposing big new ideas for building a stronger and fairer city.
The Center for an Urban Future recently published a blueprint for an equitable recovery that features concrete policy ideas from a diverse mix of 175 engaged New Yorkers. Some of the nearly 250 ideas we received would help create jobs right now or support the New Yorkers hardest hit by the pandemic, while others would lay the foundation for a stronger and more inclusive economy over the long run.
While each idea is worthy of consideration, we think the following eight warrant swift action from current and soon-to-be elected city leaders.
1. Pair tech-savvy CUNY students with small businesses that need help adopting technology (S. David Wu, President, Baruch College)
Many small businesses are still hanging on by a thread and need urgent help modernizing their operations with e-commerce, digital marketing, and better financial planning. The city can help make them more competitive in the long-run by creating a matching service that pairs businesses with talented, digitally-savvy CUNY students who are rooted in the communities facing the greatest ongoing needs.
2. Make NYC a global capital of public health (Seth Pinsky, CEO, 92nd Street Y)
As a result of the pandemic, millions of dollars in new public and private investment are poised to flow into the public health sector, resulting in thousands of new, well-paying jobs. This means investing in hospitals and the healthcare system and finally making good on the promise of New York becoming a leading hub in commercial bioscience. And unlike many other parts of the city’s economy, most of these jobs can’t easily be done remotely.
3. Spur the return to offices by supporting public programming that reinvigorates business districts (Larisa Ortiz, Managing Director, Streetsense)
To lure office workers back, the city should support new public amenities and programming in these districts—including new options that aren’t found in most residential neighborhoods. For example, New York should take a page from Vancouver, which has turned alleys into brightly painted spaces with basketball courts and foosball tables, and Montreal, which created interactive, musical swing sets.
4. Spur economic development in underserved communities by making long-overdue public realm improvements (Purnima Kapur, Chief of University Planning and Design, Harvard University)
Economic development officials can spark economic investment, small business growth, and job creation in low-income communities across the five boroughs by making public realm investments like upgrading sidewalks, creating new pocket parks, and improving lighting. Streetscape improvements like these often serve as catalysts for economic development, but too many of the city’s hard-hit neighborhoods have historically been left out of these local place-making projects.
5. Break the logjam around housing development in NYC with a grand bargain around housing and jobs (Rafael Cestero, President, Community Preservation Corp)
The pandemic has only amplified the need for more affordable housing. It’s time to forge a grand bargain by creating a citywide structure that eliminates the power of individual groups or local representatives to scuttle projects because of micro-issues, reallocates housing vouchers to create deeply affordable housing at a mass scale in the communities that need it most, and mandates local hiring on all major projects involving city land or capital.
6. Provide new income supports for NYC’s fast-growing (but low-wage) direct care workforce (Jodi M. Sturgeon, President, PHI)
The industry already employs more than 320,000 New Yorkers, and the aging city population makes it near certain that the number of jobs will grow significantly in the decade ahead. But the sector also pays among the lowest wages of any industry. The city should establish a Home Care Jobs Innovation Fund, providing workers with transportation funds, scholarship programs, and retention bonuses, while also making new investments in career training for direct care workers to improve their job quality and economic prospects.
7. Create an NYC Climate Corps (Tonya Gayle, Executive Director, Green City Force)
Teens and young adults across the city have been far more likely to lose work during the pandemic than other New Yorkers. The city can help thousands of these young adults get on track by leveraging federal infrastructure funds to create an NYC Climate Corps, which would also crucially help the city prepare for the impacts of climate change.
8. Invest in quality childcare for New Yorkers in workforce training programs (Plinio Ayala, President and CEO, Per Scholas)
With 400,000 New Yorkers unemployed and many industries facing a slow road to recovery, the city should help out-of-work New Yorkers acquire new skills so they can transition into industries that are growing. But this will require addressing a barrier that has long prevented many low-income New Yorkers from enrolling in workforce training programs: a lack of affordable childcare.
The next mayor and new leaders across city government will need a lot of good ideas in the year ahead to ensure that the city’s nascent recovery takes hold and accelerates. To build a stronger and more equitable economy over the long run, city leaders should tap into the ingenuity and experience of our fellow New Yorkers who understand how to best support the city’s diverse communities and economy.
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Jonathan Bowles is the Executive Director of Center for an Urban Future. Winston Fisher is a Partner at Fisher Brothers. On Twitter @jbowlesnyc & @nycfuture & @Winston_Fisher1.
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New York workers (photo: Governor Cuomo's office)
To The Editor:
It is no surprise that the trial lawyers’ chief lobbyist and a labor advocate who curiously finds time to push the plaintiff bar’s agenda view litigation as the best way to promote worker safety (“This Labor Day, Celebrate Workers by Ensuring Their Safety,” by Halina Radchenko & Charlene Obernauer).
It’s not.
Over the past century, increased regulations and advancements in workplace safety have saved lives and livelihoods across industries in the United States. Unfortunately, New York’s civil justice system has not caught up. Instead of ensuring that enforcement is left in the hands of accountable public agencies, the Empire State’s regulatory environment often seeks to enforce worker protections through lawsuits, saddling businesses with massive legal costs and enriching trial attorneys without truly increasing safety for workers.
The NY HERO Act, passed earlier this year, is one such example of a misguided attempt to litigate worker safety. In addition to workplace regulations, the law creates a private right of action for exposure to infectious diseases. This means that employers can be sued for alleged COVID-19 exposure after the fact. This hindsight litigation will not make any workers safer, but could instead lead to lawyers shaking down businesses for payouts.
Worker safety should not be about trial lawyer profits. We need regulators, who serve the public interest, to regulate. Deputizing trial lawyers looking to boost their bottom lines will lead to profit-seeking litigation, rather than improving worker safety.
Radchenko and Obernauer also tout New York’s unique Scaffold Law as an example of the state’s support for workers. This outdated statute has long-plagued construction projects in the state by imposing absolute liability on property owners and contractors for height-related worksite injuries, driving up costs for liability insurance and discouraging investment in infrastructure and development. Despite drastic improvements in safety measures on construction sites, this century-old law continues to punish employers, even if a plaintiff is 99% at fault. Most alarmingly, the law has been shown to do nothing to keep workers safe – a study peer reviewed by the Transportation Research Board found that the Scaffold Law may actually increase construction accidents.
For plaintiffs attorneys, civil litigation is an extractive industry. The abundance of advertisements for personal injury attorneys in media, on billboards, and at bus stops across the state, particularly in low-income communities, is further evidence that the plaintiffs’ bar uses New York’s civil litigation system to grow rich off the backs of the economically disadvantaged. And with the latest digital ad technology their advertisements are targeted at construction sites, intersections, and healthcare facilities. A study published in the Vanderbilt Law Review found that “places with many claims per capita...tend to be places with low per capita income.” The same study also finds that attorneys’ fees almost always amount to the maximum allowed by law.
Another bill, awaiting the Governor’s veto or signature, would force companies from other states or countries that do business in New York to accept the general jurisdiction of the state’s courts. This would not, as Radchenko and Obernauer suggest, “strengthen the civil justice system” – on the contrary, if signed into law this bill would promote venue shopping and abusive litigation by enticing out of state attorneys to take advantage of New York’s plaintiff-friendly legal environment. The bill also likely runs afoul of Supreme Court precedent; in 2014, Justice Ginsburg delivered the majority opinion in Daimler v. Bauman, which ruled that general jurisdiction can only be applied in an entity’s home country or state.
Honoring and protecting our essential workers is critical, but in doing so we must be careful not to recklessly promote excessive litigation. Lawsuits have a place in our legal system, but using them to retroactively sue for COVID-19 exposure is at best misguided, and at worst a giveaway to the plaintiffs’ bar, overburdening our courts and harming the businesses that drive our economy.
Sincerely,
Tom Stebbins
Executive Director at the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York
On Twitter @LawsuitReformNY.
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Rikers Island (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
There is a humanitarian crisis unfolding right before our very eyes on Rikers Island. The conditions that incarcerated individuals and staff are subjected to at the city’s jail complex — conditions that have been reported and documented by news accounts and the personal observations of many of my colleagues in government — are on par with, perhaps even worse than, what we expect to read about in countries without a commitment to human rights.
As my colleague Assembly Member Emily Gallagher recently witnessed, “there's garbage everywhere, rotting food with maggots, cockroaches, worms in the showers, human feces and piss. Most of the toilets are broken so men are given plastic bags to relieve themselves in…Because of the lack of security, everyone's scared they're going to be injured or killed. Most people have fashioned some kind of homemade weapon to defend themselves.”
So far this year, ten incarcerated individuals have been killed, including four by suicide.
Exacerbating this crisis is the toll the pandemic has taken on the personnel who work at Rikers Island. To date, more than 2,200 corrections officers have been affected by the coronavirus, resulting in a massive staffing shortage that has continued to spiral, forcing officers to work double, triple, and in some cases, even quadruple shifts without any relief. Many officers resort to sleeping in their cars between shifts, not wanting to drive home for fear of falling asleep at the wheel. Absenteeism is also on the rise, with an estimated 2,000 officers calling in sick on a daily basis. In some cases, prison units have even gone 24 hours without guards.
In addition to the consequences for the workers, the majority of whom are people of color, these conditions inhibit our officers’ ability to conduct important services, such as protecting incarcerated individuals from assault and taking them to their court appearances. As the crisis continues to worsen, officers are less and less able to fully perform their jobs safely. The family of deceased inmate Robert Jackson believes that his death was caused, in part, by the fact that a guard in his 20th consecutive hour of work stepped away from his post. This was an utter tragedy that could have been prevented.
This is the reality currently playing out inside Rikers. Incarcerated individuals and personnel fear for their lives and have been left to fend for themselves by the Mayor and Department of Correction. As one officer I spoke with told me, "Inmate, officer, at this point we’re all on the same side. We all just want to get the hell out of here. People don’t see us so we don’t exist.”
Just this week Mayor de Blasio announced a widely panned five-part plan to address the staffing crisis plaguing the jail facility, but did so without even talking to the union and staff who work there currently about what they need to do their job safely and humanely. Notably, the mayor did not commit to ending triple and quadruple shifts for officers, and instead, the heart of the plan is to punish public workers who call out sick. Placing the blame solely on officers, who did not start this fire, is a poor excuse for a solution.
This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for New York City. We need a comprehensive solution that will take into account the full scope of the atrocities that are happening to workers and incarcerated individuals on Rikers.
There needs to be a substantive dialogue between the Department of Correction and the correction officers union to address ongoing safety and staffing concerns. In addition to that substantive dialogue, there are two key pieces of legislation that could help abate this crisis.
The “Less is More” bill helps facilitate the release of people currently incarcerated on Rikers merely for technical, and not criminal, parole violations by putting them in front of a judge to determine whether they should continue to be in jail, thereby lessening the burden on the rest of the overburdened system. It currently awaits Governor Hochul’s signature.
Additionally, Senator Jessica Ramos has proposed legislation, S6688, that would cap the number of consecutive hours any city employee can work at 17. Frankly, even that number may be too high, but it’s better than 25. I urge all of my colleagues who care about what is happening at Rikers, and care about all workers, to co-sponsor this important bill.
The truth is this: if these workplace conditions existed in any other workplace, and for any other workers, we’d all be out in the streets protesting in outrage. If it’s not OK to work sweatshop hours as an Amazon warehouse employee, why is it OK to work multiple 25-plus-hour days in a week if you are a public servant of color with a uniform and a badge?
It’s time for us to solve this crisis. It’s to engage with everyone with the common purpose to save the lives of everyone on Rikers Island. It’s time for the City of New York to make a clear and unequivocal statement that these public servants and incarcerated individuals should not be subjected to work or live in inhumane and brutal conditions.
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State Senator Andrew Gounardes represents parts of Brooklyn and chairs the Senate’s civil service and pension committee. On Twitter @Sen_Gounardes.
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