Everyone deserves to worship safely and without fear. We are seeing a rise in hate violence, and I hear that fear from my constituents. Houses of worship have urgent safety needs, and I’ve supported synagogues and mosques in my district in coordinating with NYPD precincts to ensure additional security during religious gatherings. 

I am proud to vote today in support of measures that proactively address hate violence—educating students about online hate, providing emergency planning for religious institutions, and creating a hotline to track hate and bias incidents.

However, I have serious reservations about the remaining two bills in this package.

Int-1B and Int 175B require the NYPD to develop a plan to create security perimeters around religious and educational institutions. These bills give the NYPD too much power to police speech, and raise serious constitutional concerns. 

They undermine the 2020 Summer Protests Settlement Agreement, which requires the NYPD to minimize policing at protests and comply with the First Amendment through a tiered response informed by best practices. 

They also include a carveout to exempt labor picketing, creating a content- and speaker-based restriction that raises significant constitutional issues.

Because schools and houses of worship are located across the city, these police-controlled zones risk broadly limiting constitutionally protected protest, advocacy, and dissent.

At a time when our federal government is eroding civil liberties, New York City must model a different path—one that protects both safety and fundamental rights. It is imperative that we do not expand police discretion over when and where people can speak and organize.

For these reasons, I join civil rights, pro democracy, and reproductive health organizations in opposing these bills in their current form.