Dive Brief:
-
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide this month whether it will hear arguments in a case that could dilute the Fair Housing Act.
-
Civil rights advocates, hoping to preserve a legal doctrine used to enforce the Act and crack down on illegal housing practices, have convinced the parties in two similar housing discrimination cases bound for the high court to settle their issues before the justices had a chance to consider them.
-
At the core of the three cases is “disparate impact,” which is an argument that uses statistics to prove that harmless housing and lending practices discriminate against minorities— even if plaintiffs can’t prove deliberate bias.
Dive Insight:
Civil rights advocates fear conservative justices could shut down the use of disparate impact in housing cases, siding with banks and mortgage companies that say the government should punish only intentional discrimination. But civil rights groups argue that disparate impact is a powerful tool in fighting discrimination that is not overt but still harms racial minorities.