Law Commons^™

Averting Plausibility Pleading’S Threats To Novel Fha Legal Claims, Tanya Pierce, Aric Short

Faculty Scholarship

Plausibility pleading requirements articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal continue to confound even well-intentioned courts. But for courts inclined to avoid grappling with modern applications of existing law, they provide ideal camouflage: a way of relying on procedural justifications to ostensibly side-step substantive law decisions—while in effect creating de facto law that robs litigants of their day in court. These negative, unintended consequences of Twombly and Iqbal are vividly illustrated in recent federal litigation brought under the Fair Housing Act involving claims of landlord liability for tenant-on-tenant harassment.

This Article …

Fulfilling The Promise Of The Housing Choice Voucher Program: Blind Review As An Enforcement Method For Source-Of-Income Antidiscrimination Laws, Zachary Wakefield

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

The housing choice voucher program (HCV) is one that provides subsidies to very low-income individuals. These subsidies allow recipients of the vouchers to pay thirty percent of their income out of pocket towards their rent, with the difference being paid by the subsidy from the government directly to a landlord. Although the program itself is federal, it is administered by the states at the local level. As with most housing in the United States, the Fair Housing Act protects HCV recipients from discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin,” regardless of the state where the …

Reflections On Arlington Heights: Fifty Years Of Exclusionary Zoning Litigation And Beyond, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Fifty years ago, when I was two years out of law school, I began work on a case—Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. v. Village of Arlington Heights—that was destined to take on epic proportions in the housing discrimination field. The case started with a complaint filed in 1972, shortly before I joined the plaintiffs’ legal team, and was not finally resolved until 1980, after I’d left that team to become a law professor. During the seven years that I worked on the Arlington Heights case, it produced a major Supreme Court decision on standing and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause3 …

How The Fair Housing Act Fails Individual Victims With Criminal Convictions, Jane Norris, Zhiwei Hua

The Reporter: Social Justice Law Center Magazine

No abstract provided.

Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, And Homelessness Post-Bostock, Alaina Richert

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is a critical problem facing LGBTQ+ people in the United States. In addition, LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender people, disproportionately suffer from homelessness and face discrimination by homeless shelters on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This homelessness and discrimination both disproportionately affect transgender people of color. This Note makes two contributions that would enable courts to grant meaningful relief in these contexts. First, it argues that “sex” in the Fair Housing Act includes sexual orientation and gender identity after the holding in Bostock v. Clayton County. Second, …

Modification Requests In Community Associations: Do We Know What’S Reasonable?, Beth M. Gazes

Touro Law Review

The Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) as well as the New York State Human Rights Law (“HRL”) provide, inter alia, that qualifying individuals shall be granted reasonable modifications or accommodations to afford such individuals either full enjoyment of the premises or an equal opportunity to enjoy their dwelling, respectively. Both laws likely extend to common areas of the development but arrive at this protection in different ways. Namely, through the FHA’s implementing rules (“Rules”) and with guidance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”), courts have easily interpreted the FHA to extend to common areas but stop short …

20 Ways To Fight Housing Discrimination, Ian Wilder

Touro Law Review

When looking at the continuing size of the problem of discrimination it is easy to be paralyzed into inaction by the sweeping scope of the undertaking. A good remedy is to find actions that an individual can take to move toward justice. Though Dr. King is often quoted as stating that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” that bend in the arc is caused by legions of activists pulling the future toward justice. Robert Kennedy noted in his opposition to apartheid in South Africa that “a million different centers of energy and daring …

Baby, We Were Born This Way: The Case For Making Sexual Orientation A Suspect Classification Under The Equal Protection Clause Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Jennifer R. Covais

Touro Law Review

Currently, the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides minimal constitutional safeguards against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Laws that treat queer Americans differently than their straight counterparts are presumptively constitutional if those laws bear a rational relationship to any legitimate government interest. Consequently, states may limit same-goods and services of certain businesses, and qualify for government programs. The Supreme Court established enhanced equal protection guarantees for classifications based on race, ethnicity, and national origin which are deemed suspect classifications. These classifications will only survive judicial review if the government proves the law is necessary …

Domestic Violence Victims, A Nuisance To Society?: Moving Toward A More Equitable System In Protecting Vulnerable Women, Elizabeth Haderlie, Layla Shaaban

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Recent conversations about racial biases that exist towards the black community have required many of us to rethink systems and laws that unconsciously perpetuate racial discrimination. This article uses state, federal, and local lawsuits to argue the case against nuisance ordinances and the negative effects they can have on victims of domestic abuse, namely black women. We dive into the histories and statistics of domestic violence and nuisance ordinances. We provide evidence that indicates a correlation between domestic violence victim’s fear of reaching out for help, and nuisance ordinances being in place. Finally, we urge the federal government to amend …

Towards A Law Of Inclusive Planning: A Response To “Fair Housing For A Non-Sexist City”, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Noah Kazis’s important article, Fair Housing for a Non-sexist City, shows how law shapes the contours of neighborhoods and embeds forms of inequality, and how fair housing law can provide a remedy. Kazis surfaces two dimensions of housing that generate inequality and that are sometimes invisible. Kazis highlights the role of planning and design rules – the seemingly identity-neutral zoning, code enforcement, and land-use decisions that act as a form of law. Kazis also reveals how gendered norms underlie those rules and policies. These aspects of Kazis’s project link to commentary on the often invisible, gendered norms that shape …

How Judicial Application Of Cda § 230 And Fha § 3604 Have Created Safe Havens For Online Housing Discrimination, Sophia A. Studer

Law Student Publications

This article analyzes how the anti-discrimination language of Fair Housing Act section 3604 is currently out of reach for people being discriminated against online through the exclusionary language of Communications Decency Act section 230(c). The exclusionary language in CDA section 230(c) prevents liability from attaching to interactive computer service providers so long as the interactive computer service provider is not a creator or developer of information. Through the decisions of Zeran, Craigslist, and Roommate, the federal appellate courts created broad shield of immunity for interactive computer service providers, leading to a safe haven for discrimination online. Together the courts and …

Affh And The Challenge Of Reparations In The Administrative State, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

America’s summer of racial reckoning has led to increased attention on proposals to provide reparations to Black Americans.

Reparations discussions typically concern securing compensation for slavery. The racial harm caused by the administrative state is generally less of a focus, even though racial exclusions and discrimination in 20th-century administrative programs helped shape contemporary disparities in housing, wealth, and opportunity that endure today. A provision of federal housing law provides a window into the roots of racial harm enacted through administrative state programs, as well as the limits of administrative law as a tool for repairing this harm.

Bank Of America Corporation V. City Of Miami, Veronica Nicholson

Ohio Northern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Arlington Heights Won In The Supreme Court But The Fair Housing Act’S Goal Of Promoting Racial Integration Saved The Low-Income Housing, Henry Rose

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The New Housing Segregation: The Jim Crow Effects Of Crime-Free Housing Ordinances, Deborah N. Archer

Michigan Law Review

America is profoundly segregated along racial lines. We attend separate schools, live in separate neighborhoods, attend different churches, and shop at different stores. This rigid racial segregation results in social, economic, and resource inequality, with White communities of opportunity on the one hand and many communities of color without access to quality schools, jobs, transportation, or health care on the other. Many people view this as an unfortunate fact of life, or as a relic of legal systems long since overturned and beyond the reach of current legal process. But this is not true. On the contrary, the law continues …

"Our Taxes Are Too Damn High": Institutional Racism, Property Tax Assessment, And The Fair Housing Act, Bernadette Atuahene

Northwestern University Law Review

To prevent inflated property tax bills, the Michigan Constitution prohibits property tax assessments from exceeding 50% of a property’s market value. Between 2009 and 2015, the City of Detroit assessed 55%–85% of its residential properties in violation of the Michigan Constitution, and these unconstitutional assessments have had dire consequences. Between 2011 and 2015, one in four Detroit properties have been foreclosed upon for nonpayment of illegally inflated property taxes. In addition to Detroit, the other two cities in Michigan’s Wayne County where African-Americans comprise 70% or more of the population—Highland Park and Inkster—have similarly experienced systemic unconstitutional assessments and unprecedented …

Bank Of America V. City Of Miami: Standing And Causation Under The Fair Housing Act, Alan M. White

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Passage Of The Fair Housing Act Of 1968: Stories To Be Told, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The enactment of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 ("FHA") is a story filled with intrigue - coercion, duplicity, and back-room deals. In The Secret History of the Fair Housing Act, Professor Jonathan Zasloff provides a riveting account of the maneuvers by the various protagonists in that story. Review of Jonathan Zasloff’s The Secret History of the Fair Housing Act, 53 Hary. J. on Legis. 247 (2016), http://property.jotwell.com/the-passage-of-the-fair-housing-act-of-1968-stories-to-be-told/.

Racism Didn't Stop At Jim Crow, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Reviews

Nearly 50 years ago, the Kerner Commission famously declared that “[o]ur nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The picture has changed distressingly little since then. In the 1950 Census, the average African American in a metropolitan area lived in a neighborhood that was 35 percent white—the same figure as in the 2010 Census. In 2010, the average white American still lived in a neighborhood that was more than 75 percent white. America’s largest metropolitan areas—particularly, but not exclusively, in the North—continue to score high on many common measures of racial segregation. And racial segregation …

Blowing Past Minnesota Nice: New Opportunities Arise To Utilize Disparate-Impact Theory And Practice In Twin Cities Low-Income Housing Discrimination Litigation, Anne M. Robertson

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rental Home Sweet Home: The Disparate Impact Solution For Renters Evicted From Residential Foreclosures, David Lurie

Northwestern University Law Review

At the end of the last decade, a drastic spike in residential foreclosures brought unprecedented attention to the damage that mass foreclosure often brings to primarily low-income, minority–majority communities. Much of this attention—in both the media and in the legal arena—has been devoted to homeowners disadvantaged by predatory loans and other unsavory practices. However, a recent body of scholarship has shown that the brunt of mass foreclosure often falls on renters, who often have little or no procedural protection from speedy and unexpected eviction from their homes, regardless of lease status or tenure. This Note argues that the Supreme Court’s …

Just, Smart: Civil Rights Protections And Market-Sensitive Vacant Property Strategies, James J. Kelly Jr.

James J. Kelly Jr.

This essay, prepared for and published by the Center for Community Progress, a national, non-profit intermediary dedicated to developing effective, sustainable solutions to turn vacant, abandoned and problem properties into vibrant places, examines the legal and normative implications of local governments' use of neighborhood real estate market data to strategically focus vacant property remediation tools. I and other writers, such as Frank Alexander, Alan Mallach and Joseph Schilling, have argued for the importance of understanding the economic feasibility of market-based rehabilitation of derelict, vacant houses in making decisions as to how and when to use a variety of code enforcement, …

Justice Kennedy's Big New Idea, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In a 2015 case, the Supreme Court held that plaintiffs could bring disparate impact claims under the Fair Housing Act (the "FHA"). In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy relied heavily on the text and supporting case law interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act ("Title VII") and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (the "ADEA '). Without explicitly recognizing the powerful new idea he was advocating, Justice Kennedy's majority opinion radically reconceptualized federal employment discrimination jurisprudence. This new reading of Title VII and the ADEA changes both the theoretical framing of the discrimination statutes and greatly expands their scope. …

Making And Meeting The Prima Facie Case Under The Fair Housing Act, Frederic S. Schwartz

Akron Law Review

This article will deal almost exclusively with cases in the Individual Discrimination category.

Analysis of the housing discrimination cases requires that the fundamental substantive issue and the fundamental procedural issue be carefully distinguished. The substantive issue is simply whether the Act has been violated. That issue will be ultimately decided by the jury (or the judge in a trial to the court). The fundamental procedural issue with which we shall be concerned is whether the plaintiff has established his "prima facie case."

Part II of this paper will deal with the substantive issue and Part III with the procedural one. …

What’S Hud Got To Do With It?: How Hud’S Disparate Impact Rule May Save The Fair Housing Act’S Disparate Impact Standard, William F. Fuller

Fordham Law Review

Since 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari three times on the question of whether disparate impact liability is cognizable under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). The first two times, the parties settled. The question is before the Court once again in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., and this time the parties seem unlikely to settle.

Disparate impact liability in the civil rights context entails liability for actions that have a discriminatory effect, regardless of an actor’s motive. Under the FHA, this can translate into liability for actions that make housing …

Just, Smart: Civil Rights Protections And Market-Sensitive Vacant Property Strategies, James J. Kelly Jr.

Journal Articles

This essay, prepared for and published by the Center for Community Progress, a national, non-profit intermediary dedicated to developing effective, sustainable solutions to turn vacant, abandoned and problem properties into vibrant places, examines the legal and normative implications of local governments' use of neighborhood real estate market data to strategically focus vacant property remediation tools. I and other writers, such as Frank Alexander, Alan Mallach and Joseph Schilling, have argued for the importance of understanding the economic feasibility of market-based rehabilitation of derelict, vacant houses in making decisions as to how and when to use a variety of code enforcement, …

The Agency Roots Of Disparate Impact, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

The disparate impact strand of antidiscrimination law provides the possibility of challenging harmful employment, education, housing, and other public and private policies and practices without the often-difficult burden of proving intentional discrimination. And yet the disparate impact standard seems to be facing its own burdens. Rulings by the Supreme Court in recent years have shaken the disparate impact standard's footing. In Ricci v. De- Stefano, the Court rejected a frontal assault to the disparate impact standard under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but cast the standard as at odds with Title VII's true core – …

Introduction (Symposium On Municipal Liability), Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

No abstract provided.

Citizen Police: Using The Qui Tam Provision Of The False Claims Act To Promote Racial And Economic Integration In Housing, Jan P. Mensz

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Economic and racial integration in housing remains elusive more than forty years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act. Recalcitrant municipal governments and exclusionary zoning ordinances have played a large role in maintaining and exacerbating segregated housing patterns. After discussing some of the persistent causes of segregated housing patterns, this Note presents a novel approach to enforcing the Fair Housing Act and the "affirmatively furthering fair housing" requirement on recipients of federal housing grants. This Note presents a citizen suit that emerged from the Southern District of New York in Anti-Discrimination Center v. Westchester County, where a private …

Discretionary Pricing, Mortgage Discrimination, And The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm, Jeffrey L. Taren

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

For generations, mortgage lending has always been the gateway to the American dream of homeownership, and, historically, has also been characterized by widespread discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities and their communities. Mortgage discrimination in the modem era has often been accomplished through a technique known as discretionary pricing, in which lenders allow their loan officers and brokers to increase borrowers' costs from an objectively determined base rate. In the past decade alone, discretionary pricing has cost minority homeowners billions of dollars in extra payments, which, in tum, has led these minorities to suffer higher foreclosure rates than whites and …