Seeing as how it's impossible for the government to outlaw secret, unspoken discrimination, does it make sense for us to have laws like the federal Fair Housing Act that prohibit overt discrimination? Some lawyers are suing Craigslist over discriminatory housing ads, but despite the law I think their suit misses the point: a landlord won't rent to someone he doesn't want to rent to, and there's no way for the government to determine his true motives.
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law sued San Francisco-based Craigslist, claiming that during a six-month period beginning in July, the site ran more than 100 ads in Chicago that violated the federal Fair Housing Act.The committee, a public interest consortium of the city's leading law firms, said in a federal suit that those ads discriminated on race, religion, sex, family status or national origin.
Among the ads cited in the suit: "Non-women of Color NEED NOT APPLY"; "African Americans and Arabians tend to clash with me so that won't work out"; and "Requirements: Clean Godly Christian Male." ...
Laurie Wardell, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Lawyers' Committee, said landlords realize that the Internet has a lower bar for housing ads. "You just shift to the Internet if you want to discriminate," she said.
Landlords who can't discriminate in ads can still discriminate in person. At worst, these ads help prevent renters and landlords from wasting time pursuing arrangements that one party has no desire to approve.
Update:
Aside from the question of whether or not we should have laws prohibiting certain kinds of overt discrimination, Eric Goldman says there is a "a clear federal exculpatory statute and directly-on-point adverse precedent" -- which means he thinks The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law will lose. (Maybe if their name was shorter they'd have time to read more case law.)
Having been a legals assistance in a firm that represented landlord and as a own of property I'm trying to rent (plus a aunt and grandfather who who have been in the property management and land development businesses for years), I grudingly have to say that under fair hosuing law the lawyers will probably win. Also under fair housing law you can be fined (around 10k first offense, incrases after that) and sued (uncapped punative damages) for discriminating in person. You have to have established critera for judging applicants (such as credit score, beackground check, past evictions) and follow it, that criteria cannot violate fair housing or discriminate (unless the person is a smoker or owns pets) giving priority to the first completed application, so you can move a later application above an earlier one because you liek that person better. Most people don't contest who gets selected based on fair housing, but if they do you better have your ducks in a row.
Maybe it's just me, but I think that the zeitgeist is turning against the general idea of anti-discrimination law. It's the natural result of the country's movement to the Right, where conservatives have long seen that anti-discrimination laws are typically about punishing hated groups and helping favored groups.
I hope that this suit garners lots of publicity. As with the Mohammed cartoons, the more the other side talks about its beliefs, the more damage they do to themselves.
BB said: "... the country's movement to the Right"
What movement? How did you determine that there is such a movement?
And I have a general question to ask.. of anyone here. Do you support Fair Housing law(s)? Upon what criteria do you think it is appropriate to discriminate who you rent to?
.. other than things like credit score/history, criminal record, employment, etc.
From past experence I've seen similar law suits in regards to the ADA, where some lawyer will go visit a vacancy, note anything not ADA compliant, then sue the pants off the owner. The big managment companies had resources to fight it, but the mom and pop owners would get reamed.
As far as Fair Housing Laws, they shouldn't be their. Its a limit on the rights of a property owner to make decisions on their property as they see fit. Now if the owner is using a government program such as Section 8 there is validity to the government interfering with the what the owner does, similar to allowing military recruiters on college campuses if the recieve federal money. However if the owner does not the government should have no business telling the owner how they should conduct business. The same goes for hiring people, leave them alone. If a business owner wants to hire based on color, its their right and if they want to hire less qualified people because they like the skin tone, idiotic moves like that will end their business, much like what happened Ted Stepien former owner of the Clevland Cavs. The same stuipdity applies to Rent Control which prohibs an owner from charging fair market value for property they own, more government interference with the free market.
Think of you opinion of censorship on the FCC, prohibiting people from putting their opinions/views on tv for the reason it offends others. How is it any different when you regulate what people feel in their opinion is the best thing they can do with their own property.
For reference Ted Stepien became owner of the Cavs in the late 70's early 80's. The team sucked and no one went to games, in his wisdom he thought it was because they had too many black players so white residents of Clevand weren't going to games. So he traded for some white player, who happened to be shittier than the players he had. As a result the team sucked even worse and even fewer people went to the games. His management became so bad (I believe he threatened to move the team) the league took the team away from him. Simple moral, he had his opinion as to what would make the team more popular and it was purely based on race, he hired less skilled players to fit his race view and through his idiocy ultimatly failed. The important part is that he had the right to be an idiot and fail because of it.
Mark, you're a well-informed guy. If you haven't figured out that the country is moving to the right, then nothing I can say will change your mind.
Like Pirate, I think that people should generally be free to do what they want with their property, while government should not be allowed to discriminate on race, religion, etc. It's the opposite of what we have today.
tP: Oh, this isn't about what *I* think. I was just asking for people's opinion on the subject.
BB: You think the country is moving to the right. I asked you to describe the criteria for arriving at such a conclusion. You responded by telling me that it's quite obvious. In other words, you didn't answer my question. Okay, I'll ask another one: On what issues and themes has there been a massive shift in public opinion that can objectively be described as the country "moving to the Right"? Health care? Social Security? Taxes? Education? Foreign policy? In my estimation, your conclusion is, at best, somewhat accurate. Public opinion on some issues has indeed swung to the Right. On other issues, though, public opinion has either not changed much or moved a little to the Left.
For a country so notably "moving to the Right", we certainly didn't like the President's Social Security reform package, demanded a new prescription drug entitlement, objected to the government's actions in the Terri Schiavo situation, and are not thrilled by the Bush administration's handling of Iraq. And, on top of that, we generally think the country is heading in the wrong direction under Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress.
Now, are there issues on which the country has moved to the Right? Certainly.. but that's quite a bit different from the country "moving to the Right" as a whole.
I have another question for everyone: Should property owners be required to identify, up front, the areas in which they judge who to rent or sell to or should they be able to add/remove criteria whenever they see fit?
Its their property, they should be allowed to do with it as they wish.
Well, they should at least be up-front and honest about who they won't rent/sell to.
As probably expected, I agree with BB and tP. Property owners should be able to do what they want with their property. That's what "owning" means. If they want to rent to certain people, that's up to them. If such discrimination doesn't end up costing them money then they're either doing the right thing (financially) or they aren't charging enough.
Mark, I didn't say that the rightward shift is obvious. I said that nothing I can say will cause you to perceive it.
All three branches of government are under Republican control. The two latest US Sup Ct justices would have been unthinkable just ten years ago.
The Left is hell-bent on alienating itself from the rest of America. Current events force us to focus on true evil in the Middle East, not the faux evil that the Left has used for so long as a pretext to take our freedoms.
None of this will convince you, of course. But that says far more about you than about the facts.
Mark: "Well, they should at least be up-front and honest about who they won't rent/sell to."
I'm sure that they would love to openly express their preferences, but the Left wants to punish them for doing so. Don't you agree that the Left's dream of inculcating good thoughts by threat of force has failed, and Americans should again be free to associate with whom they want?
An intelligent person will probably find ways to discriminate without running afoul of the law; a dumb one will screw up. Many years ago, my wife and I were looking for a place to rent, and we ran into the first (and last) case that I have ever seen of overt discrimination. The manager opens the door, and after a few minutes of talking and showing us the apartment, she informs us, "We don't rent to niggers, slopes, or Mexicans." I was in utter shock--not that there were people that thought that way, but that anyone was so stupid as to say it directly. For all she knew, this early 20s couple were sent over by the NAACP.
In theory, such overt discrimination would be so damaging economically (by removing too large of a potential market) that it should disadvantage her behavior. But fortunately, her building was largely filled, by her own admission, with old people living on HUD Section 8 rent subsidies.
BB: Republican control of all three branches of government and subsequent nomination of US Supreme Court justices doesn't necessarily translate into a rightward shift in terms of public opinion, especially when public approval of both the Republican-led Congress and the Republican President is rather low.
The actions of the Left say nothing about the country as a whole; about the middle-of-the-bell-curve American voter.
BB said: "I'm sure that they would love to openly express their preferences, but the Left wants to punish them for doing so. Don't you agree that the Left's dream of inculcating good thoughts by threat of force has failed, and Americans should again be free to associate with whom they want?"
We're already quite free to associate with who we want.
But I'll tell ya what. I'll support repealing Fair Housing laws (for property owners who don't receive any government money) if you'll support abolishing the FCC's decency rules.
Mark: "We're already quite free to associate with who we want."
I don't have any idea what you're talking about. I thought that we were discussing anti-discrimination laws, which are express limits on freedom of association. You aren't free to associate only with particular groups based on race, sex, religion, etc. Nor are you free to avoid associating with particular groups. (Unless you're a liberal, of course. Then you can discriminate all you like, as they do in academia and Hollywood, because you're one of the good people.)
That's the very essence of what it means to have an anti-discrimination law: People are punished for acting on certain preferences that are deemed evil. The inherent problem is that the definition of 'evil' preferences is arbitrary, and quickly becomes a political weapon. It's illegal for individuals to discriminate on sex and race in their business dealings, because they're probably bad people who would discriminate in the wrong ways. But it's good for government to discriminate on sex and race in its business dealings, because government will favor the correct sex and the correct races. So the idea that anti-discrimination law expresses some general theory of justice is simply preposterous. It's just a spoils system.
BB: We were talking specifically about anti-discrimination laws.. right up until this sentence of yours changed the scope to something broader: "the Left's dream of inculcating good thoughts by threat of force has failed, and Americans should again be free to associate with whom they want?"
Mark, I don't understand you. I'm saying that anti-discrimination laws limit freedom of association. Do you disagree with that? Or do current anti-discrimination laws leave enough freedom, in your opinion? Or too much?
BB: Yes, anti-discrimination laws limit freedom of association to a certain degree. The question becomes one of whether that limitation on freedom is justified. I, personally, don't think it is in all cases. Limits on freedom must always be justified in some sensible way or they should not be imposed in the first place.
As I said earlier, remove the FCC's decency rules and I'll remove anti-discrimination laws. If FCC decency rules are justified, so too are anti-discrimination laws. Both involve the concept of governmental purview being granted on the basis of "government knows best". If the government doesn't know best how you should conduct affairs regarding your property, neither does it know best what everyone should be permitted to or prevented from watching, listening, or reading.
I think anti-discrimination is a good Idea. It shouldn't matter what race u are. u should treat them like a person no matter what color there skin is. If u dont like African americans more power to you but dont try to get other people on your side.