Stop calling it fair housing law. If it was ever a matter of fairness, it isn’t now.
Under today’s 5-4 Supreme Court holding in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, you can be held liable for housing discrimination whether or not you or anyone in your organization intended to discriminate. Instead — to quote Justice Anthony Kennedy, who joined with the Court’s four liberals in a 5-4 majority — you might have been influenced by “unconscious prejudice” or “stereotyping” when you lent money or rented apartments or carried on appraisal or brokerage or planning functions. What you did had “disparate impact” on some race or other legally protected group, and now you’re caught up in potentially ruinous litigation in which it’s up to you to show that you had a good reason for what you did and could not have arranged your actions in some other way that had less disparate impact.
The decision is quite broad in its implications. For example, in employment discrimination law, where disparate impact has long been legally established, it is increasingly legally dangerous to ask job applicants about criminal records, or carry out criminal background checks on them before a job offer, for fear of disparate impact. Is it still safe to ask such questions of prospective tenants in your apartment building? Better ask your lawyer.
There are NO Liberals on the Court.
NONE of them believe in Liberty.
There are 5 Bolsheviks, 3 Jurists, and 1 Pederast.
“But your honor. Mr. La Pokistahnez isn’t qualified to buy my property because the mortgage is $5,000 per month and in addition there are HOA bills and utilities…And he’s on welfare and his credit rating is TWELVE! ”
– Racist! Sentence hearing next week.
NEXT CASE?!
Is that about right?
Idiots.
Oh my goodness gracious!
I’m old enough that your mortgage couldn’t exceed 25% of your monthly income.
This ruling falls into the area of “thought police”.
Said it before and I’ll say it again — we’re in the handbasket and we are reaching warp speed.
How is a 5/4 a majority. If the one person voted the other way they would lose.
It should need two for a majority.
The old “you can go to jail for what you might be thinking” and the court mavens will decide what that is! They are going to need a bigger jail!
Yeah good luck defending yourself, whatever your defense is, it is racist!!!
@Anonymous — one more equals a majorty. Always has, always will..
Aaaaaaand….we’re done. When conservative judges decide for leftism, there can be no hope. Supreme Court decisions cannot be repealed.
Supreme Court decisions can be overturned. All depends on the make-up of the Court and the framework of the argument.
In other words, white people can’t be landlords anymore unless they give cut rate rents to black and hispanics and charge white renters more. Gosh, no racial discrimination there, because fucking over whitey is just peachy as far as the federal government goes.
That’s fck’n great, now the monkeys on the supreme court are running the country and they will tell you what you can and cannot think. Even if you don’t really think it.
jclady is right, we will be punished for our thoughts if they are not in alignment with these tyrants. Time to step up and take this counrty back. If it’s not stopped, we can go to our graves knowing that our grandchildren will all die in gulags, at the rate that this shit is progressing.
Great. Now all those Jews cloistered in the high-rise condos on the beach will be forced to invite (and underwrite) the blacks and others they spent all that money to avoid.
Talk about wailing and gnashing of teeth!