Footnote 28: Throughout this decision, we have referenced Gallo to illustrate types of analyses that have now been rejected by the Restoration Act, but it is important to note that the Restoration Act will require many courts to approach the City HRL with new eyes. It is not that frequent that, as here, legislation is enacted "to remind, empower, and require judges to fulfill their essential role as active and zealous agents for the vindication of the purposes of the law" (A Return to Eyes on the Prize, 33 Fordham Urb LJ at 290). Nor are judges often urged by the legislative body to exercise judicial restraint against substituting their own more conservative social policy judgments for the policy judgments made by the Council or treating a local law as merely in parallel with its federal or state counterpart (id.).
Footnote 29: Cf. Committee Report, 2005 NY City Legis Ann, at 538 n 8 (the Restoration Act "underscores the need for thoughtful, independent consideration of whether the proposed interpretation would fulfill the uniquely broad and remedial purposes of the City's human rights law").
Footnote 30: One can easily imagine a single comment that objectifies women being made in circumstances where that comment would, for example, signal views about the role of women in the workplace and be actionable. No such circumstances were present here.
Footnote 31: The lack of actionable gender-based discrimination in this case (to which a pre-limitations period harassing comment could otherwise be linked) is discussed infra, in part V.
Footnote 32: The record shows that plaintiff was, in fact, absent on two occasions, but complained about being denied training.