"a better approach would be for the Council to limit itself to specifically overruling individual interpretations that it views as unduly restrictive. However, this approach has proven ineffective in the past, as the courts have tended to construe narrowly specific Council amendments. Without an explicit instruction that the City Human Rights Law should be construed independently, courts will continue to weaken New York City's Law with restrictive federal and state doctrines."
Footnote 20: See Committee Report (2005 NY City Legis Ann, at 538 n 8). See also page 4 of the Bar Association letter (supra at footnote 7) that construction must flow from "the Council's clear intent to provide the greatest possible protection for civil rights," and page 6 of the Anti-Discrimination Center testimony (same footnote) that "[i]n the end, regardless of federal interpretations, the primary task of [a] judge hearing a City Human Rights Law claim is to find the interpretation for the City law that most robustly further[s] the purposes of the City statute."
Footnote 21: The fact that title VII has language similar to that of the City HRL does not even begin our inquiry, let alone end it. The Restoration Act made clear, with specific statutory language, that the obligation to determine what interpretation best fulfills the city law's purposes is in no way limited by the existence of cases that have interpreted analogous federal civil rights provisions (Administrative Code § 8-130; cf. Gallo [where the court apparently believed there was something called "the hostile work environment law" (585 F Supp 2d at 538), but never asked what interpretation of section 8-107 (1) (a)'s "terms (and) conditions" language would best fulfill the uniquely broad and remedial purposes of the City HRL]).