Housing Law Commons^™

Neighbor-On-Neighbor Harassment: Does The Fair Housing Act Make A Federal Case Out Of It?, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Does the federal Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) ban harassing statements to a minority family who has just moved into a predominantly white neighborhood? The FHA does contain an antiharassment provision (42 U.S.C. § 3617), and this certainly applies to firebombings and other types of physical assault designed to drive the family out of the area. But does § 3617 also outlaw purely verbal attacks? And if so, how egregious must the remarks be before a federal case should be made out of them? For example, would substituting "Niggers" for "people like you" in the above quote make a difference?

Today, …

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 …

Cox, Halprin, And Discriminatory Municipal Services Under The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article deals with Cox v. City of Dallas, Halprin v. Prairie Single Family Homes of Dearborn Park Ass’n, and the issue of whether the Federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) should be interpreted to outlaw discrimination in the provision of services by local governments. Part I describes the Cox litigation and its connection with Halprin. Part II surveys the pre-Cox cases that have dealt with discriminatory municipal services. Part III analyzes the FHA's relevant provisions and their legislative history and concludes that Cox and Halprin were wrong to deny FHA protection to current residents. Part IV …

Private Enforcement And The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The first section of the Fair Housing Act declares that "[i]t is the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States." If the United States has been officially committed to providing for fair housing for the past 20 years, why is segregated housing still the prevailing norm throughout our nation? Why does discrimination still regularly occur when minority homeseekers venture into white areas? Why are the opportunities for living in stable, integrated neighborhoods only marginally better now than they were a generation ago in the days of Lyndon Johnson, Everett McKinley …

Compensatory Damages In Federal Fair Housing Cases, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The federal fair housing laws became effective in 1968. Since then, courts have often awarded damages to victims of housing discrimination, but their decisions have provided little guidance for assessing the amount of such awards. There is a great range of awards, with some courts awarding only nominal damages of $1 and others setting awards of over $20,000. Compounding the problem is the difficulty of measuring the principal element of damages claimed by most plaintiffs in fair housing cases, noneconomic emotional harm or other forms of intangible injury.

Rarely is the basis for the amount of the court's award satisfactorily …

Discriminatory Effect And The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article addresses the question of whether housing practices that produce discriminatory effects violate the Fair Housing Act. The language and legislative history of the statute are examined, the analogy to employment discrimination law is explored, and the principal Title VIII cases are considered in an effort to determine just what racial discrimination is under the Fair Housing Act. This analysis leads to a suggested approach for evaluating Title VIII cases that are based on discriminatory effect, including how such an effect may be shown by the plaintiff and what significance such a showing should have in terms of the …