The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (“LDF”) submitted comments in support of the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) proposed rule reinstating the discriminatory effects standard, a critical tool in remedying segregation and racial inequity. The restoration of the discriminatory effects standard appropriately reflects decades of experience in evaluating fair housing claims, the history and purpose of the Fair Housing Act, and federal court interpretations.
The withdrawal of HUD’s 2020 discriminatory effects regulation and the reinstatement of the 2013 standard aligns with HUD’s obligation to implement and enforce the Fair Housing Act. In its current rulemaking, HUD is appropriately reinstating a disparate impact standard that provides a workable framework for assessing discrimination claims and that is grounded by the underlying statute.
LDF strongly supports the restoration of this important rule, which took a critical step forward in providing a clear and workable standard for the evaluation of discriminatory effects claims under the Fair Housing Act. LDF also urges HUD to undertake vigorous steps to enforce this rule, in lending, municipal services discrimination, subsidized housing administration, access to housing for people with criminal records, and in all other areas where the discriminatory effects standard comes to bear.
Read the full comments here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Follow LDF on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
