The Trump administration recently announced that it has rescinded Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), an Obama-era regulation intended to ensure compliance with the Fair Housing Act (FHA). AFFH requires cities and towns to analyze local housing data for discriminatory patterns and submit plans to address those issues in order to continue receiving federal funding. This
HUD Proposed Rule Demands More Disparate and More Impact to Establish Disparate Impact Liability
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a sweeping proposed rule on August 1 seeking to amend HUD’s interpretation of the Fair Housing Act’s disparate impact standard. According to HUD, the proposed rule is designed to better reflect the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Texas Department of Housing and Community
United States Senate to Consider Legislation Expanding Fair Housing Protection to LGBTQ Community
A bipartisan measure was introduced in the United States Senate in late April to expand fair housing protections to LGBTQ persons. The Fair and Equal Housing Act of 2019, introduced by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Angus King (I-ME), and Tim Kaine (D-VA), would expressly include “sexual orientation and gender identity” as characteristics protected by
2017 in Review: Three State Enforcement Trends Impacting the Auto Finance Industry
Auto lenders, like many private citizens, began 2017 curious as to what change the impending Trump administration would bring. In the landscape of government enforcement, however, the consensus amongst industry participants was that the Trump administration would bring loosened regulation for the consumer finance industry. Many industry insiders mused about the potential sea change that
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Use of Disparate Impact Claims in Fair Lending Enforcement
The US Supreme Court finally weighed in today on whether the disparate impact theory may be used to prove housing discrimination and ruled that such claims are viable under the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601 et seq. This means plaintiffs only need to show the discriminatory effect of a particular business