Eric Eingold

The Project

The Fair Chance Project will utilize New York City’s ban-the-box-law, the Fair Chance Act, to combat employment discrimination against youth in New York City, educate stakeholders of the Act, and fight to improve the lives and futures of young people affected by the criminal justice system.

The criminal justice system is critically flawed. It disproportionately targets communities of color and creates collateral consequences that penalize people long after they leave jail or prison. Discrimination against people with criminal records is one of the most severe collateral consequences resulting mass incarceration. In New York, criminal convictions often stay on a person’s record for life. By combatting employment discrimination against people with criminal records, the Project will help young people overcome the consequences of growing up in over-policed communities and obtain lives of dignity and purpose that accompany meaningful employment.

Fellowship Highlights

In the past two years, Eric has:

• Led 45 Know Your Rights Workshops about criminal records-based employment discrimination to over 1,300 New York City youth;
• Developed an innovative litigation practice at Youth Represent to fight for clients who were denied jobs because of their criminal records and brought cases at the New York City Commission on Human Rights, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and federal court asserting claims under the Fair Chance Act, the New York City Human Right Law, disparate impact theories, and the state and federal Fair Credit Reporting Acts; and
• Was appointed class action counsel in cases representing plaintiffs who were denied jobs on the basis of their criminal records that won significant changes to the hiring policies of large employers and monetary compensation for over 500 class members.

What’s Next

Now that the Fellowship is complete, Eric plans to continue to help build Youth Represent’s employment discrimination practice targeting employers that unlawfully deny employment to job seekers on the basis of criminal record information.

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