LAW-2957 Housing Discrimination Law, Theory and Practice: Brainstorming and Implementing Solutions to Discrimination
The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status and national origin in public and private housing. Between the time when Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, and the Fair Housing Act (FHA), government and private actors engaged in behavior that caused segregation that persists today. Housing discrimination is prevalent throughout the United States and our society relies heavily on the private right of action of aggrieved individuals to enforce the FHA and similar state and local anti-discrimination laws to address this problem. This is a hybrid course is designed to provide the student with the practical knowledge necessary to assist a client in a fair housing matter. Students in this course will be introduced to fair housing law, policy, and procedure, and given the opportunity to draft actual fair housing complaints and/or design and help coordinate a systemic fair housing test. Suffolk's Housing Discrimination Testing Program (HDTP) works with discrimination testers to gather evidence about the typical business practices of housing providers. Students will not only gain the experience of working with facts to develop a complaint, but will study the law, HUD guidance, agency procedure, and fair housing cases and agency decisions that will help prepare the student for practice in the future. This class will focus on practical skills such as strategic decision making and factual investigation. We will also take an in depth look at jurisdictional issues and matters of proof in discrimination cases. The final assignment will be either a paper or the drafting of a housing discrimination complaint. This is a hybrid course so some work will be completed online and some meetings will be in person. Students using this course to fulfill the experiential learning requirement may not also use this same course to meet the legal writing requirement.