New York City’s new racial profiling ban will help restore community trust in the police and make city streets safer for all New Yorkers, argues the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in defense of the law late Friday.

“A safe New York is a New York where everyone is able to trust and respect the Police Department,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “That can’t happen unless all New Yorkers are treated equally – with courtesy, professionalism and respect. The ban on racial profiling is an important step in that direction.”

The End Discriminatory Policing Act requires police officers to base law-enforcement decisions on a person’s actions, not their skin color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation or immigration status and prohibits lawsuits seeking money damages, while allowing suits seeking policy reforms. It comes in response to documented discriminatory policing practices by the NYPD, including a skyrocketing stop-and-frisk regime that targeted innocent black and Latino New Yorkers and a suspicionless surveillance program that monitored New York City’s Muslim community.

The law passed the New York City Council in June and overrode a veto by Mayor Bloomberg in August, but the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and the Sergeants Benevolent Association sued to block the law in October.

Click here to read the NYCLU’s full brief.