LSNYC Files Discrimination Complaint Against Goodwill for Violation of NYC Human Rights Law

February 28, 2017, NEW YORK— Legal Services NYC today filed a discrimination complaint on behalf of Bruna Miguel, a Bronx resident who was harassed and thrown out of a Goodwill Industries of Greater New York & Northern New Jersey (“Goodwill”) retail store in Chelsea for the offense of speaking Spanish inside the store. The complaint alleges violations of the NYC Human Rights Law and was filed with New York City’s Commission on Human Rights.

On November 30, 2016, Ms. Miguel was shopping at Goodwill and chatting with a friend in their native language when a store clerk told them that they were not allowed to speak Spanish in the store. When Ms. Miguel explained to the employee that she wasn’t speaking Spanish to the employee, but rather to her own friend, the store clerk did not relent, saying, “This is America, you need to speak English here.”

Shocked, Ms. Miguel tried to explain that English is not her first language, and she needed to be able to speak with her friend in Spanish. The store clerk simply repeated over and over that Ms. Miguel and her friend needed to stop speaking Spanish or they would have to leave the store. Eventually, the clerk called the store manager over. Rather than explain to the clerk that she could not discriminate against customers, the manager instead told Ms. Miguel that she and her friend had to leave the store. Ms. Miguel protested that she shouldn’t have to leave, but the manager raised his voice to her and called over a security guard to escort Ms. Miguel and her friend out of the building.

“This behavior is entirely inexcusable,” said Christine Clarke, Director of the Civil Rights Justice Initiative at Legal Services NYC. “To throw people out of a store for speaking Spanish, particularly in this time of heightened tension and fear for immigrant communities, is just reprehensible. It’s also, of course, discrimination on the basis of national origin, in violation of our City’s Human Rights Law, which is why we’ve filed a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights.”

The New York City Human Rights Law makes it unlawful for a public accommodation such as a retail store to “refuse, withhold from, or deny… any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges” of the public accommodation on the basis of actual or perceived national origin, and the New York State Court Appellate Division has held that discrimination against limited English proficient individuals constitutes a violation of the law.

“I was so hurt and embarrassed when the manager told me I had to leave the store, because I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” said Ms. Miguel. “I was just having a conversation with my friend. I never thought a store like Goodwill would treat someone badly just because they were from another country or didn’t speak much English, especially in a city as diverse as New York.”

Ms. Miguel and Legal Services NYC have requested that the Commission require Goodwill to provide training to its staff on how to comply with the Human Rights Law, and to implement proper protective policies, procedures, and instruction to prevent any future discriminatory abuse.
 
 
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