Woodstock Institute has written a comment letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in response to the Agency’s proposed repeal of regulations implementing the Fair Housing Act’s Disparate Impact Standard. The proposed rule would undermine disparate impact liability, making it more difficult to identify and prove housing discrimination.
All our residents deserve to have access to the housing they need without facing unfair and unlawful discrimination. This is equally true whether that discrimination takes the form of disparate treatment based on race, national origin or other protected class characteristics or whether it is manifested in the kinds of hidden, sometimes subtle forms of discrimination against which the disparate impact standard, as codified in HUD’s current regulation and based on over 50 years of legal precedent, has been successful in combatting.
The legal arguments for this proposal directly contradict the intent of Congress, Supreme Court rulings, and the Administration’s own arguments on this issue. The Trump Administration’s CFPB has noted the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that statutes with “effects-based” language authorize disparate impact claims and even cites the Fair Housing Act as an example of such a statute. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has even held that the Fair Housing Act specifically authorizes disparate impact claims.
In the face of such a clear consensus regarding the FHA, implementation of this proposal would be a direct rebuke of the executive branch’s duty to implement and enforce laws, not to remake them.
