Enacts the "assuring college campus and educational safety and support (ACCESS) act" relating to harassment of students and applicants at educational…

• Democratic15
• Republican2

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Leroy Comrie says this is needed

According to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education, 118 hate crimes were reported at colleges and universities in New York in 2022. 41.5t of these were hate crimes based on race; 31.4t were based on religion; and 7.6t were based on gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Hate crimes, of course, represent a severe but small subset of incidents of bias at educational institutions. Jewish students have experienced a dramatic increase in incidents of antisemitism since the terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel on Octo- ber 7, 2023. Hillel International, the largest Jewish student organiza- tion in the world, tracks antisemitism on college campuses, and reports an increase from 290 incidents in the 2022-23 school year to 1,854 in the 2023-24 school year. The problem of antisemitism on campus is particularly acute in New York. In a 2023 study conducted by Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, three of twelve institutions of higher education identified as having the nation's highest levels of anti-Semi- tic hostility are located in New York. Likewise, a 2023 report by the Lumina Foundation found that more than one-fifth of Black students at colleges and universities felt "frequent- ly" or "occasionally" discriminated against, and that this was a signif- icant factor contributing to non-completion. More than a quarter of Black students who attended schools with little diversity felt phys- ically unsafe. Many other groups of students are victimized because of their identity, and educational institutions in New York have significantly more work to do to prevent and address incidents of discriminatory harassment. The vagueness of New York State's Human Rights Law (HRL), however, gives them little reason to do so. Subdivision 4 of HRL section 296 makes it an "unlawful discriminatory practice" for an educational institution to "permit the harassment of any student or applicant" based on aspects of the student's identity, but says nothing about what it means to "permit" such conduct, or what constitutes "harassment." Moreover, amendments to the HRL enacted in 2019 that clarified and strengthened its protections against discrimi- nation in other contexts, particularly for employees, were not made to apply to educational institutions. This legislation amends HRL 296 to establish a standard for demonstrat- ing that an educational institution has violated the law that is the same as the standard currently in effect for an employer, licensing agency, employment agency, or labor organization. It also requires educational institutions to take reasonable care to prevent and correct acts of harassment, and defines more precisely what it means for a college or university to "permit harassment" under subdivision 4, including a failure to promulgate rules; establish mechanisms for reporting, investigation, and adjudication; establish penalties; clearly communicate and consistently administer such rules, mechanisms and penalties; or take reasonable measures to prevent the on-campus presence of unaffiliated individuals who engage in harassment. As is currently the case, this law would be enforceable by the Division of Human Rights, by the Attorney General (in the case of a pattern of violations), or through a private right of action. The aim of the legis- lation, of course, is to focus educational institutions on adequately protecting students and responding appropriately to incidents of harass- ment.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.