City Council Creates Office for Discrimination at TLC as Battle Over Uber Bills Heats Up

First it was Al Sharpton, who told The New York Times “Some yellow cabs won’t even go uptown or to parts of Brooklyn.... If you are downtown they won’t stop.”

Then L. Joy Williams, president of the Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP, told Brian Lehrer that she too opposed the New York City Council's efforts to curb Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing apps.

"Long before these ride sharing apps came about, we've talked about the transportation deserts that exist all over the city," she said. "These ride-sharing apps opened up transportation in new ways." 

In what appeared to be a response to these critics, the City Council announced Tuesday that it would be creating an Office of Inclusion at the Taxi and Limousine Commission to look into passenger's complaints about being denied taxi service because of race.

Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund, said in a statement that she's been urging the TLC to create such an office for a year now.

"These persistent ride refusals are not just an inconvenience, but they deprive us of our dignity," Ifill wrote in a statement. "Though the practice has been illegal for 50 years, and there have been improvements over the past decade, this discrimination remains a part of New York City life for African-Americans."

At a rally outside City Hall Tuesday in support of the Council's bills, taxi workers chanted, "Regulate Uber now."

Taxi Workers Alliance Executive Director Bhairavi Desai said Uber's business model hurts people of color.

"Saturating the streets with vehicles that has led to the poverty of a workforce of largely immigrants of color is not a civil rights position," she said. "It's unfair, and it's wrong, and it's unconscionable for Uber to use its corporate agenda to divide a workforce of color from the African-American community."

The council's bill could come up for a vote as early as August 8.