Update June 2021: The Biden Administration, under Department of Housing & Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, has published a proposed rule to reinstate the Disparate Impact Standard to full effectiveness. This follows the 2020 move by Donald Trump's HUD Secretary, Ben Carson to dismantle the disparate impact standard, effectively rendering it toothless.
Learn about the importance of the Disparate Impact Standard and read examples of how it can make a difference when it is enforced:
It sounds pretty technical, but this part of the enforcement of the Fair Housing Act is quite straightforward and incredibly valuable to the fight against discrimination.
This standard allows people to challenge housing discrimination without having to prove “discriminatory intent” in the mind of the discriminator. In other words, it’s the outcome that matters, even if it’s impossible to demonstrate (as it usually is) what a developer or an insurance company or a landlord’s intention was when they took the discriminatory action.
Take for example a landlord that institutes a new rule that any tenant that calls 911 for emergency services more than twice in 6 months can be evicted; as a result, several women and their children are evicted from their homes after calling the police or an ambulance as a result of domestic violence. This policy has had a “disparate impact” on women, since 95% of domestic violence victims are women—although anyone can be a victim of domestic violence. While the landlord’s policy doesn’t explicitly state they will evict women, the impact of the policy puts up barriers to women renting. That’s the basis of disparate impact: it’s not what you say or intend, it’s what are the results of your actions.