The Legal Aid Society filed this lawsuit challenging the Port Authority Police Department’s (PAPD) discriminatory practice of using plainclothes officers to arrest gay, bisexual, and gender nonconforming people and falsely accuse them of public lewdness and exposure in the Port Authority Bus Terminal men’s restrooms, in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the plaintiffs.  

The Southern District of New York determined that we presented enough evidence of the Port Authority’s wrongdoings for a jury to hold multiple officers and the Port Authority as liable for violating the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of Plaintiffs Cornell Holden and Miguel Mejia, who were falsely arrested because the police perceived them to be gay or gender nonconforming. In 2022, the court approved a settlement that mandated: 

• PAPD cease plainclothes patrols of restrooms for lewdness or exposure, and mandates that any future patrols of this type have the highest level of senior PAPD sign-off;
• New training programs to curb bias policing against the LGBTQ+ community by PAPD;
• The installation of single stall restrooms at Port Authority as Gender Neutral Restrooms;
• Improvements to the civilian complaint and officer discipline process and the creation of a designated point of contact for community groups representing marginalized identities.