This ones a little different, obviously, because the protected categories that maybe have a negative impact on … ]” “Courts should avoid interpreting disparate-impact liability to be so expansive as to inject racial considerations into every housing decision” or “to second-guess” between “two reasonable approaches[. There were several provisions in HUD’s regulations that were not entirely in sync with the Supreme Court’s decision. In our scenario, an African American applicant, Mr. Charles, claims his application to Happy Village was denied due to his criminal history. He further claims that the criminal history policy adopted by Happy Village has a disparate impact against African Americans. For additional information on disparate impact, see the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) final rule published in 2013 that formalized a 3-part burden-shifting test for determining when policies or practices resulting in a discriminatory effect violate the Fair Housing Act. If, however, Mr. Charles is able to show all of these elements in his initial claim, the case will move on to the next stage of the analysis. The reality is that these cases are already burdensome and challenging for plaintiffs, and the proposed regulations don’t add significantly to their burden.If Happy Village successfully challenges Mr. Charles’ statistical analysis, showing that the disparity is not significant, or that if a disparity exists, it is not the challenged policy that caused it, Happy Village will win this case. The federally protected classes under the Fair Housing Act are race, color, religion, national origin, familial status, disability, and sex. If Mr. Charles’ criminal records show that he was convicted of assault that occurred in a bar fight fifteen years ago, and he has been out of prison and crime-free for more than ten years, it is probably not reasonable to deny him housing because the policy considers him “dangerous.”Plantiffs will have a much more difficult job challenging a tailored, thoughtful criminal history screening policy.”If, however, Happy Village already has a criminal history screening policy that differentiates the severity of various crimes with decreasing look-back periods, it will be much more difficult for Mr. Charles to challenge the policy as unnecessarily broad.
The proposed rule radically reinterprets existing housing law to give landlords and mortgage lenders a recipe to discriminate by algorithm. Another argument Happy Village could use in its defense is that unless aggressive criminal screening is conducted, Happy Village’s reputation will be harmed, resulting in its residents being less likely to lease and remain living at Happy Village. The proposed revisions explain how to make a claim of disparate impact, but, in this regard, do not make a significant improvement to the original regulations. New date & location! It’s entitled: HUD’s Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Disparate Impact Standard.