Minneapolis City Council passes ordinance barring discrimination based on body weight and height

The Minneapolis City Council voted 13-0 Thursday to expand civil rights protections, barring discrimination against people on the basis of their height and weight, housing status or because they were formerly incarcerated.

If signed by Mayor Jacob Frey, who supports it, the ordinance would go into effect Aug. 1. Minneapolis would become the eighth U.S. city to outlaw weight- and height-based discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations — joining cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., according to the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.

Minneapolis would also become the third city in the nation to prohibit discrimination against people based on their criminal background. Atlanta and Kansas City have similar protections.

Under the new protections, employers couldn’t terminate someone for living out of their car. Employers couldn’t deny someone a job based on a 10-year-old conviction without doing an individual assessment. A college couldn’t ban convicted felons. A prospective employer couldn’t discriminate against someone based on their height or weight.

The civil rights ordinance was sponsored by Council Members Robin Wonsley and Jason Chavez.

During a public hearing last week on the proposal, Tigress Osborn, executive director of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, said only two states and seven cities have any protections against size discrimination.

People deserve recourse when a doctor won’t treat them, a judge assumes they’re a bad parent or a school or employer won’t give them an appropriate desk and chair, Osborn said.

“This is a serious issue that we’re not taking seriously enough,” Osborn said.

Cat Polivoda, owner of a plus-size retail shop in Minneapolis, said she hears about kids being bullied and fat people being denied medical treatment. She holds “fat pool parties” that people love because it’s sometimes the only time they’ve been at a pool and not felt judged, harassed or singled out.

Several people testified last week in support of protections against discrimination for people with criminal records, saying it’s difficult to find a job or housing because of their criminal record.

Maurice Ward, who‘s running for the City Council in Ward 5, said when he came home from prison, he ended up in prison again because he couldn’t find a house or job.

“That’s why recidivism is high,” he said.

Antonio Williams, who served 14 years, returned home almost five years ago and started a nonprofit called T.O.N.E. U.P. (Teaching Ourselves New Examples to Uplift People) to help people who’ve done time. He said it’s become harder and harder, as people are discriminated against “in violent ways.”

Ronald Brown said that when he was “19 and dumb” in 1994, he was convicted of illegally having an unregistered firearm. Thirty years later, he was fired by a nursing home two years into his job, even though he’d won awards for his work.

Wonsley was overcome with emotion after hearing their testimony, calling it “extremely powerful” and recounting how she has supported a loved one who has spent 15 years going in and out of prison and ended up feeling “less than human.”

“I really hope ... that Minneapolis in passing this can be a beacon of light for so many cities and other places that they have to capitulate to the hate and intolerance that is being spread across the country right now,” she said.

The city already has 15 protected classes in its civil rights ordinance banning discrimination based on race, age, disability, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, religion or national identity.

The measure also bolsters enforcement of current protections, requiring accommodation for religious observance, for example, and expanding jurisdiction to investigate pay inequity.