Press Room

"I commend the state legislature and Governor, who finally repealed the 'Walking While Trans' ban today, and offer gratitude and congratulations to the advocates who have fought for years to achieve this progress. This law, which targeted and discriminated against transgender New Yorkers, particularly trans women of more color, has for many years carried on the kind of bias-based policing we saw at the height of the abuses of stop, question, and frisk. On the city level, we have been able to take some steps to combat the harm of this policy, including preventing the violation from serving as an impediment to employment, but only state action could fully eliminate this statute that enabled discrimination and empowered bigotry and violence.

"While celebrating this victory today, I look ahead to standing with dedicated advocates in the long and ongoing fight for true justice and equity for the transgender community."

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement after the de Blasio administration answered calls from elected leaders and advocates to release demographic data on who has received the COVID-19 vaccine to date. The data revealed that of the recipients who provided demographic information, Black and Brown communities have been vaccinated at about half their population share in the city, while white New Yorkers receiving the vaccine represent roughly 1.5x their relative population in the city.

"Our leaders have continually failed vulnerable communities throughout this pandemic - first in minimizing infection, now in maximizing injection. The demographic data on vaccine distribution that the city finally released today after long delays confirms what we feared and expected - that the people and communities of more color, disproportionately harmed by the pandemic, have been disproportionately hindered in equitable access to vaccination. 

"Many of us knew this would be the case, and we know there are many contributing factors, from infrastructure inadequacy and technological failures to cultural hesitancy to longstanding healthcare privileges and disparities. We know too that the government - city, state, and federal - each had a role in creating this divide, and has a responsibility to equitably close it. There are no excuses and there can be no passing the blame at this point - supply may be a federal issue, but distribution decisions fall on our state and local executives. 

"We had the time to get this right. We have the tools, systems, and community networks in place to reach people in communities of more color with information about and access to the vaccine - we proved this capability in our work for an improved census count last year during a pandemic. In order to vaccinate New Yorkers with speed, equity, and efficiency, the city can and must learn a lesson from those efforts. A progressive New York should be leading the way on equity, not looking for excuses when we fail to achieve it."

"After last year's State of the City address, I was encouraged by the plans and promises that the speech presented, and the new direction from the Mayor that it signaled. Then in March, the state of the city fundamentally changed, and the pandemic slowed or stopped progress in many areas as new wounds were created and old ones exposed.

"Public safety, and the racial inequities in how it is enacted and protected, has been among the most prevalent challenges since before the pandemic, but the work to redefine it was more present on our screens and streets this year than in decades.

"Tonight, I was glad to hear many of the Mayor's proposals in this area, including further empowering the CCRB, increasing investment in the Crisis Management System, and giving communities a voice in the leadership of their local precincts. Making permanent the Task Force on Racial Inclusion and Equity also has the potential to help ensure these issues, ever present in public safety, do not recede from public consciousness or public policy.

"Reimagining public safety, like all of the compounding crises our city faces, are ones that must be confronted head on by not only this Mayor but the next-- with a push to ensure true transparency and meaningful accountability. There is one year left for the Mayor to take some of the bold steps he should have years ago, and I am ready to move forward with him now if he does. In this last year of the de Blasio administration, we have an opportunity to set the city on the right path to recovery, if we pursue bold, courageous policy proposals and shape, not bend to, political winds."

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams called for passage of two bills aimed at correcting city and state failures to meet the COVID-19 state of emergency and preparing for any further crises at a hearing of the Committee on Fire and Emergency Management today. The bills would create an emergency response task force for citywide action and mandate an emergency student food plan in the event schools are closed. Watch the hearing here.

"The bills before the Committee today are intended to be proactive measures in the face of a crisis. New Yorkers deserve immediate answers. Instead, what we saw and heard was a wait-and-see approach. This cannot be the standard in the future," said Public Advocate Williams of the bills. "The intention of these bills is having New York City prepared. Whether it is another pandemic or natural disaster, New Yorkers need assistance and assurances of leadership, and I thank Chair Borelli and Speaker Johnson for recognizing the need to prepare now."

The first bill, Intro 1987, would establish a task force that would be responsible for reviewing each City agency's emergency plan and issuing an annual report with recommendations should any concerns be identified. The task force would be composed of nine members, including the Commissioner of Emergency Management, or the Commissioner's designee, as well as individuals appointed by the Mayor, the Speaker of the Council and the Public Advocate. The task force would be required to hold a public hearing at least once a year, regardless of whether a state of emergency is in place.

The second, Intro 2057, would require the Office of Emergency Management, in consultation with the Mayor's Office of Food Policy and the Department of Education (DOE) to develop a plan to provide students with breakfast, lunch and dinner in the event that City schools are ordered closed either by the governor, mayor or chancellor, or when any form of remote learning is being used by the DOE. Every person under 21, without a high school diploma, and enrolled in a school qualifies for food assistance - crucial as over one million New York City residents live in food insecure households.

Read the full statement from the Public Advocate for today's hearing below, or download it here.

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement after it was revealed that Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon purchased and utilized Clearview AI facial recognition software.

"I was alarmed to learn that the Staten Island District Attorney's office has worked with Clearview AI beginning in May of 2019, and I am grateful that the Legal Aid Society helped to uncover the existence of this contract. That the District Attorneys' office deemed the pursuit of further transparency about this purchase to be an invasion of privacy is ironic, hypocritical, and unacceptable.

"Use of this kind of technology disproportionately targets and falsely condemns people of more color- It amounts to a more technologically advanced version of the same biased-based law enforcement we have battled for many years. District Attorney McMahon must immediately halt any usage of this tool, and District Attorneys across the five boroughs must commit to banning the use of this software in their own offices.  Facial recognition technology like Clearview AI has the capacity to be not a tool for public safety, but a threat to it."

"President Biden has taken office, and Donald Trump has left it. Given the events of the past four years and the past two weeks, we cannot underestimate or overstate the importance of our institutions holding well enough to remove a tyrant. With President Biden, Vice President Harris, and their administration taking office, we can minimally begin the long and difficult work of undoing the harm inflicted by the man who occupied that office for four years, and by his enablers. But we know, too, that we cannot simply go back - we can neither erase the pain and suffering of the last four years nor find ourselves content to return to the levels of pain and suffering that existed before it. We have to move forward with humanity and purpose, pushing for progress through established impediments and often against political winds.  

"For New York City and for our nation, in the next one hundred days, the next four years, we must continue the pursuit of equity and justice, lifting up the vulnerable and victimized. We face a long recovery from compounding crises, but today the ongoing crisis, the existential threat, that was the Donald Trump presidency came to an end, and for that I am grateful and relieved. Now, we may allow ourselves a brief moment, a breath - and then we will continue the work."