It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but in New York City the infatuation with “disastrous good intentions” is a sacred command.  

The latest installment of the march down a ruinous path are laws protecting all New Yorkers from discrimination due to their weight or body shape, save where demonstrably necessary. According to the City Council, “Body size discrimination affects millions of people every year, contributing to harmful disparities in medical treatment and outcomes, blocking people from access to opportunities in employment, housing and public accommodations, and deepening existing injustices that people face,” Ignored is the medical evidence on the dangers of obesity and how the CDC classifies 42% of Americans as “obese.”

No worry. According to Mayor Eric Adams, however, “Science has shown that body type is not a connection to if you’re healthy or unhealthy” though the city currently has a diabetes epidemic. The edict’s enactment was hailed by an NYU student who claimed that the school’s desks were too small for her while a Metropolitan Opera singer explained how she developed an eating disorder after being fat shamed.

The city’s latest anti-discrimination decree is only one of a long list of anti-bias missives that adds to bans based upon race, sex, sexual identity, age. religion, and national origins along with veteran or current military status. Then add pregnancy and lactation status, marital status and partner status, prior arrest and conviction record, salary history, and one’s status as victim of sexual abuse or stalking,

Anti-discriminatory rules are especially numerous in the housing market, so landlords cannot reject prospective tenants due to source of their income, making public assistance and government subsidies equivalent to income from employment. Recent laws have also made it nearly impossible for landlords to evict tenants. Nor can landlords check previous credit histories to screen tenants, so a history of personal bankruptcies is irrelevant. Ditto for the number of children who will live in the residence and if the applicant has a disability, the landlord must pay for a reasonable accommodation.

These anti-discrimination measures are guaranteed to increase the cost of doing business in the city. Now, each edict requires businesses to pay lawyers to revise the company’s anti-discrimination policy. In the case of fatness and body shape, rule-making will be particularly difficult, since the law only bans employers from making decisions on the basis of the “actual or perceived” height or weight of employees and job applicants, To be sure, there may never be a suit by someone claiming they were refused a job for being “too short” but if a suit is filed, the sued firm must respond by demonstrating how company policy explicitly probits this prejudice. And since plaintiffs can use free government legal services or hire a private lawyer on a contingent fee basis, the possibility of discrimination suit bringing a jackpot payout is always possible.

Now, employees will be trained on how to apply nondiscriminatory hiring practices when the “oddly shaped” apply for a position. The Human Resources Department must now ensure that 400-pound job applicants will not be quizzed about their past diabetes or their ability to sit at a normal desk.

Businesses will suffer. With employers prohibited from asking about prior criminal records and troubled credit histories, the odds of employing dishonest workers increases. Hiring extremely short workers might mean having employees unable to perform necessary physical tasks. Appearances also matter. What fashion boutique would voluntarily hire slovenly, overweight salesclerks unable to fit into the store’s fashionable clothing, but this is what the legal department might advise to avoid costly litigation. Particularly in businesses depending on public contact, for example, restaurants, employee appearances can make a major difference, so a tavern that wisely hires only good-looking waitresses risks a suit from an ugly rejected job applicant.

Every additional anti-discrimination rule limits an employer to hire the best possible workers. In the eyes of a jury or judge, a firm with only White male employees is almost automatically guilty of discrimination regardless of objective evidence. Since “everybody knows that diversity is our strength,” it is better to hire a diverse staff regardless of competence. Moreover, objective employment tests to measure job aptitude may be construed as evidence of bias if members of a jury believe that those tests are racially biased.

Faced with constant threats of litigation, employers might reasonably reduce their workforce by automating tasks, outsource hiring to subcontractors beyond the city’s legal jurisdiction, move services online and use AI, or just abandon the city altogether. According to one recent survey, 22% of major New York City employers anticipate moving their headquarters out of the city. What rational business would even contemplate trying to function with all these rules that add zero to the bottom line?  

Small business can hire recent immigrants who are reluctant to sue or depend on word of mouth to advertise jobs without written requirements.  A restaurant can put the word out informally that they need “good-looking young girls to wait tables” Employees can recommend friends and relatives without running afoul of city bureaucrats on the lookout for discrimination. Such informal tactics might be inefficient but less risky than having to interview everybody who shows up for a job interview.

Anti-discrimination measures are devastating for efforts to create desperately needed affordable housing. Building reasonably-priced housing is a snap but no real-estate developer will do so if they cannot choose their tenants. What landlord will rent to tenants if he cannot check their credit histories, criminal records (nearly 750,000 New Yorkers have conviction records), ask about number of children (and their criminal records), and similar traits to screen out undesirable tenants? What if the tenant sets up a noisy church in the apartment and threatens to claim religious discrimination if evicted? It may take years to evict this tenant. Keep in mind that only a few troublesome tenants and their uncivilized children to destroy a building. It is no wonder, then, that New York real-estate developers prefer luxury building where exorbitant rents guarantee well-behaved, financially solvent occupants, nor is it a surprise that much of the city’s affordable housing stock was constructed prior to the onslaught of anti-discrimination laws. 

The harm imposed by these anti-discrimination rules is obvious, so why do New York City elected officials rush to enact them when ordinary people suffer?  Answer: these officials are anti-business.

Yes, millions cannot find decent jobs or adequate inexpensive housing, but the evil capitalists will not prosper thanks to higher operating costs and having to hire incompetents. Rhetoric aside, the anti-discrimination mania is punitive, and consistent with the broader left-wing anti-business agenda of defunding the police, decriminalizing shoplifting, tolerating destructive riots and no-cash bail and, most of all, crushing taxes. In this radical agenda those unable to find jobs or live in reasonably priced apartments are just collateral damage necessary to destroy capitalism. The city’s radicals just hate the goose that lays the golden eggs and are forever devising new ways to cook it.

Image: Ted Eytan