Serving the Southern District of New York
The Office's Civil Rights Unit is responsible for enforcing the federal civil
rights laws in the Southern District of New York, which includes Bronx,
Dutchess, New York, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, and Westchester
Counties. The federal civil rights laws enforced by the Office include
the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized
Persons Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances
Act, the police misconduct provision of the Violent Crime Control and
Law Enforcement Act of 1994 ("Section 14141"), Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of
1972, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and the
Voting Rights Act. In addition, the Civil Rights Unit, in conjunction
with units within the Office's Criminal Division, investigates and prosecutes
violations of the criminal civil rights laws, including laws prohibiting
hate crimes and the use of unreasonable force by those acting under color
of law.
The Civil Rights Unit welcomes information from the public that brings to our attention possible violations of our nation's civil rights laws. At the same time, while the scope of our civil rights practice is broad, the authority of the Department of Justice to investigate and seek relief for individual complaining parties for alleged civil rights violations is limited. We may investigate and seek to remedy alleged discriminatory conduct only where and in the manner specifically authorized by law. Accordingly, the Civil Rights Unit has authority to investigate and seek to remedy patterns and practices of certain unlawful discriminatory conduct, but we generally do not have the authority to represent individuals in their pursuit of private civil rights claims. More frequently, the Civil Rights Unit handles individual civil rights cases only after they have been investigated and referred to us by another federal agency, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (for employment discrimination), the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (for housing discrimination), or the United States Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights (for discrimination in education).
If you have information concerning a potential violation of the federal civil rights laws that you wish to bring to our attention, you may click on the following link and complete the Civil Rights Unit Complaint Form (PDF) and mail or fax it to the Civil Rights Unit.
United States Attorney's Office
Southern District of New York
86 Chambers Street, 3rd Floor
New York, New York 10007
(212)
637-2750 (fax)
Attn:
Chief, Civil Rights Unit
Si necesita ayuda en español, por favor llame al:
212-637-2100
You may also call and leave a message on our Civil Rights Complaint Line
at (212) 637-2987. The messages are checked on a daily basis. Our TDD
number is (212) 637-0039.
Click on the links below to view recent Civil Rights Unit press releases and corresponding cases. We will periodically post updates as they become available to our office.
Recent Cases |
Recent Press Releases |