And Here, You Thought Discrimination Was On The Ropes

I’ve never liked meetings, but the title of this one - “There Goes the Neighborhood!” - intrigued me, so I went. The confab was sponsored by Washington State University and the city of Spokane, to teach us the ins and outs of the Fair Housing Laws.

The first half hour was predictable and interesting, as our instructor plied us with games and platitudes designed to convince us of our evil past and the nobleness of these laws. Then came the ins and outs. Or as they say, the devil is in the details.

I support open housing. It’s certainly wrong to discriminate on the basis of things that aren’t important. The details are another matter.

To begin with, understand that it’s not discrimination that’s illegal. It’s discrimination against a protected class. You can ban lawyers from an apartment but not families, unless, I suppose, the family includes a live-in-lawyer.

Age discrimination is illegal. Sort of. A “senior” complex can discriminate against the young.

Under federal (but not state) law, we have seven protected classes. Discrimination against any protected class is illegal, unless you’re a religion or the owner-occupant of a fourplex or smaller. Unless you’re a Realtor. Realtors don’t have discrimination rights. And so it goes.

A hotbed of discrimination, we were taught, is advertising. The term “single-family house” comes from the building and zoning codes. It means the property has one living unit. “Empty nesters’ delight” has always been a favorite Realtor term for a small house. You’d have to be dumber than a stump to consider either term discriminatory, but in fair housing new-speak, both are pejorative and thus illegal.

If a client asks a Realtor to find a neighborhood with a church of a certain denomination, the Realtor can’t do it. This is “religious discrimination.” It’s illegal to advertise the quality of the schools or neighborhood! This is called “steering.”

To the question of how to serve the client who doesn’t know the area but qualifies for 500 listings, we were told to give him the list and ask him to choose what to see. Above all, don’t offer an opinion.

These laws are enforced by bounty hunters called “testers” who take a percentage of the fines (starting at about $10,000) they collect for nabbing violators. You never know when you might be talking to a tester.

Several decades ago, we decided as a nation that discrimination was wrong and should be ended. The key to achieving this goal is freedom of choice. The major impediment of choice was government. Slavery and racial segregation were enforced by government. Private discrimination, such as restrictive covenants in real estate deeds, was enforced by government.

Fortunately, private prejudice is extremely difficult to sustain when not enforced by law. That’s the reason why the bigots passed these laws when they controlled the government. By repealing the legal barriers to choice, we set in motion a dynamic that will eventually break down the barriers and create a truly multicultural society.

Unfortunately, we forgot that government tends to look after the interests of those who control government. Someone who’s offended by the term “empty nesters’ delight,” will be offended by anything. Such people make it a point to be offended.

Calling this a crime makes no sense until you realize how many people make their living by uncovering discrimination - whether it exists or not. We also forgot that it was the assignment of different rights to different groups that caused the problem in the first place.

We haven’t abolished special privilege. We’ve simply transferred it to different recipients. Most importantly, we’ve abandoned some very important safeguards against the misuse of government power.

It was made clear to us that “guilty until proven innocent” is the rule in the Fair Housing Law.

Scary as this is, there’s another concept that’s far more sinister and dangerous. The landlord or Realtor doesn’t have to actually discriminate or intend to discriminate. The “victim” merely has to feel discriminated against.

Think about this for a minute. The person suing you only has to feel aggrieved to collect damages. If he has to invent new meanings for established words to achieve these feelings, so be it. You’re guilty. If freedom of speech has to be suspended to promote the interests of the politically correct victim group of the moment, so be it. Government objectives are more important than your rights.

Or are they? I believe that freedom of speech and association are essential parts of a free society. I reject the idea that people are evil by nature. Most of us merely want to make a living and live in peace. We see through the stereotypes and we don’t mistreat others. We certainly don’t conspire to exclude people who would make good customers.

In addition, the existence of millions of successful women and people who are part of minority groups is proof that we are able, as individuals, to overcome or work around prejudices that do exist. For government to divide us into groups and promote the interests of one group over another is a total distortion of justice. It’s also unnecessary and dangerous.

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