Free Republic

President Trump recently decided to rescind the Obama administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which put pressure on suburbs to construct more low-income, high-density housing in their communities. Trump’s decision met with a predictable outcry. “It’s not even a dog whistle anymore,” Connecticut senator Chris Murphy tweeted. “Our President is now a proud, vocal segregationist.” Somehow, Democrats still see the suburbs as racially homogenized, lily-white enclaves — something they haven’t been for a long time. According to demographer Joel Kotkin and urban studies professor Alan Berger, 151 million Americans live in the suburbs and exurbs, compared with only 25...

The Trump administration took steps Tuesday to roll back an Obama-era rule intended to ensure that communities confront and address racial segregation in housing, saying local governments have been overburdened by the requirements. The proposed Department of Housing and Urban Development rule would redefine fair housing standards to place more emphasis on improving housing choice rather than reducing discrimination. It would reduce regulatory burdens and eliminate the assessment tool used to map racial segregation under the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. According to HUD, simplifying the process for cities to meet fair housing requirements would help them meet their...

Much of AFFH is buried in regulatory law Yes, President Trump can halt HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing program even before Dr. Carson is confirmed. If you follow the news, you probably noticed that President Trump is moving quickly on his campaign promises. You have also probably noticed that the Senate opposition is slow-walking his cabinet appointments to make it harder to for the president to address regulatory actions.

And, lo and behold, it will be coming very soon to your neighborhood, in the form of a fair housing rule promulgated by Obama. This rule, known as the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule (AFFH), has been shrouded in secrecy. Obama, the ultimate leftist, continues with his false utopian dreams. Repeatedly, Obama openly supports the notion that wealthy people have no right to their wealth. And, furthermore, it is the principled right of poor people – or the government serving their so-called interests – to rob the affluent of their hard-earned wealth. In traditional Obama fashion, the AFFH will actually...

The Obama administration is moving forward with regulations designed to help diversify America’s wealthier neighborhoods, drawing fire from critics who decry the proposal as executive overreach in search of an “unrealistic utopia.” A final Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule due out this month is aimed at ending decades of deep-rooted segregation around the country.

Five years ago, while fervently supporting the candidacy of the man who would become America’s first black president, I came to the realization that I didn’t actually know any black people....One,maybe two,was the norm....I wanted to know why integration—actual,genuine integration—had failed so spectacularly. The result....was Some of My Best Friends Are Black:The Strange Story of Integration in America, which traced the history of the color line back through all the places I have lived and chronicled the various efforts to erase it:school busing, affirmative action, air housing, etc.......after eight miserable years of George W. Bush and the euphoria of the...

HUD's New 'Fair Housing' Rule Establishes Diversity Data for Every Neighborhood in U.S. o ensure that "every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of," HUD has published a new fair-housing regulation intended to give people access to better neighborhoods than the ones they currently live in. The goal is to help communities understand "fair housing barriers" and "establish clear goals" for "improving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation.

To ensure that "every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of," HUD has published a new fair-housing regulation intended to give people access to better neighborhoods than the ones they currently live in. The goal is to help communities understand "fair housing barriers" and "establish clear goals" for "improving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation." “This proposed rule represents a 21st century approach to fair housing, a step forward to ensuring that every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of – where they...

Attorney General Eric Holder said a federal probe found discrimination against at least 200,000 qualified African American and Latino borrowers from 2004 to 2008, during the height of the housing market boom. He said that minority borrowers who qualified for prime loans were steered into higher-interest-rate subprime loans.

A lesbian couple is suing a Vermont inn, claiming it refused to host their fall wedding reception because of their sexual orientation. Kate Baker and Ming Linsley filed the suit on Tuesday in Vermont Superior Court, accusing the Wildflower Inn of Lyndonville of abruptly turning them away after learning they are lesbians. They claim the inn violated Vermont’s Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act, which prohibits inns, hotels, motels and other establishments with five or more rooms from turning away patrons based on sexual orientation. The law makes an exemption for religious organizations. ..“I think this case could set an...

In the Spring of 1968 at the Bing Nursery School in Palo Alto California, America came to an end. Within its walls, the elites learned just how cheaply our souls could be had: All it cost was a couple of minutes and one marshmallow per soul on average.

Racial and ethnic diversity is the key to happiness, success in the global marketplace and, not least, an interesting life. So we are told in a batch of new "fair housing" radio ads that are the sort of treacly propaganda that cause sober drivers to run off the road. Presented as a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, the ads were produced by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a private, nonprofit group whose stated purpose is to make sure the act is properly implemented. The act bans housing discrimination and imposes stiff penalties for those who...

I caught a radio ad promoting Diversity the other day on the Dennis Miller show. Here’s a partial transcript: Obviously White young girl: “Gee, you work with lots of people who don’t look like you at all!” White mother: “What do you mean?” Girl: “Well, there are Asian people, African-American people, Latino people–” Mother: “We all work together as a team.” Girl: “Aren’t they different from you?” Mother: “In a way, yes. But those differences are good. They mean different ways of seeing things, different ways of thinking things, different ways of doing things.” Girl: “But if those differences are...

Ninth Circuit En Banc Opinion in Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com is here; Chief Judge Kozinski writes the opinion for an 8-3 en banc panel. About to read it now; hope to have comments soon. UPDATE: The en banc court reaches the same result that the panel below reached. Let me summarize the issue, and the holding, by borrowing from my earlier post. The Fair Housing Council sued Roommate.com, which runs roommates.com, under the Fair Housing Act. Roommates.com (I'll use the more familiar plural site name, rather than the less familiar singular company name) contains many expressions of people's preference...

During the last week of its just completed term, the Supreme Court granted review in a case called Cuyahoga Falls v. Buckeye Community Hope Foundation. The Court's decision got very little publicity, but one of the issues in it is extremely important. The question is whether the federal Fair Housing Act — which bans discrimination on the basis of, among other things, race — can be violated by someone who does not engage in racial discrimination.Now, the answer to that question ought to be an obvious no, but unfortunately most of the lower federal courts have allowed "disparate impact"...