Antidiscrimination Law

Seventh Circuit holds that transgender discrimination is a form of sex discrimination

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Fair Housing Act, Sexual Orientation, Trespass

Applying Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a three judge panel of the Seventh Circuit has ruled that a school must allow a transgender boy to use the boy’s bathroom, holding that discrimination on the basis of gender idenitty is a form of sex discrimination. Whitaker v. Kenosha Sch. Dist. No. 1 Bd. of Educ., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 9362 (7th Cir. 2017). The court affirmed a preliminary injunction granted by the District Court requiring the school to allow plaintiff access to the restroom that conforms to his gender identity. The court rested on the gender conformity argument because “[b]y definition, a transgender individual does not conform to the sex-based stereotypes of the sex that he or she was assigned at birth” and a “policy that requires an individual to use a bathroom that …

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Supreme Court rules that a city has a claim against a bank for the consequences of discriminatory subprime mortgages

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Consumer Protection, Mortgages, Real Estate Transactions

In Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami, 137 S.Ct. 1296, 197 L. Ed. 2d 678 (2017), the Supreme Court held that the City of Miami was an “aggrieved person” within the meaning of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §3602(i), and that it could sue the Bank of America (and other banks) for lost tax revenue and other municipal expenses resulting from alleged discriminatory grants of subprime mortgages to Miami residents that resulted in mass foreclosures and vacancies. While it violates the FHA to deny mortgages on the basis of race, it also violates the FHA to target a racial group for disfavored terms. The Court noted that it had been previously held that white persons have a claim under the FHA when they are deprived of the benefits of interracial associations when discriminatory rental practices kept African Americans out of a rental complex (citing Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 …

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Sexual orientation discrimination as a form of sex discrimination

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Consumer Protection, Fair Housing Act, Sexual Orientation

While the West Virginia Supreme Court adopted the traditional view that discrimination because of sexual orientation is not a form of sex discrimination, State v. Butler, 2017 W. Va. LEXIS 333 (W.Va. 2017) (hate crime against two gay men did not constitute criminal civil rights violation willfully injuring a person “because of such other person’s … sex”), the Seventh Circuit came to the opposite view in Hively v. Ivy Tech Cmty. College of Ind., 853 F.3d 339 (7th Cir. 2017). See also Christiansen v. Omnicom Group, Inc., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 5278 (2d Cir. 2017) (although bound by precedent to hold the opposite, the court argued that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimination); Smith v. Avanti, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54777 (D.Colo. 2017) (refusal to rent to same-sex couple when one of the two was a transgender woman is a form of sex discrimination because it is based on gender stereotyping). The West Virginia Supreme …

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Town cannot impose greater parking requirements for a mosque than for churches or synagogues

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Real Estate Transactions, Religious Freedom, Zoning

A town violated the Religious Land Use-Institutionazlied Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc to 2000cc-5, when its planning board required a mosque to provide off-street parking for every single member as a condition of receiving a building permit when it had not imposed similar requirements for churches and synagogues. Islamic Soc’y of Basking Ridge v. Twp. of Bernards, 2016 U.S. DIst. LEXIS 180568 (D.N.J. 2016). The town had reasoned that, because religious services were on Friday afternoons, almost every person would be using a car to attend services while the same would not be true for churches and syanagogues. The court found this reasoning to be discriminatory since the proposed mosque plan was subjected to unprecedented individualized inquiry that had not taken place for other non-Islamic religious institutions in the past. That constituted a RLUIPA violation because it violated the “equal terms” provisions which prohibit “impos[ing] or implement[ing] a land use regulation in …

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Sex offender cannot be evicted from state-subsidized housing because of regulatory limitation imposed after the lease began

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Consumer Protection, Due Process, Homelessness

The Connecticut Supreme Court has held that a registered sex offender cannot be evicted from housing subisidized by the state when he obtained the subsidy and the housing before passage of the state law banning such assistance. Shannon v. Comm’r of Housing, 140 A.3d 903 (Conn. 2016) (see dissenting opinion here). The court applied a state law that provides that any law that imposes “any new obligation on any person or corporation shall [not] be construed to have a retroactive effect.” Conn. Gen. Stat. §55-3. Under that law a new regulation that denies housing assistance to registered sex offenders could not be applied retroactively. The Court noted, however, that “although there is a property interest in the receipt of a public benefit so long as it is available, without statutory terms restricting its authority to do so, the legislature remains free to change or eliminate benefit entitlements by amending or repealing the …

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Another court holds that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimination

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Fair Housing Act, Sexual Orientation

A federal district court has held that discrimination because of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination. EEOC v. Scott Med. Health Ctr., P.C., 2016 U.S. DIst. LEXIS 153744 (W.D. Pa. 2016). Plaintiff complained of a sexually hostile work environment by deriding his sexual orientation. The court noted that “[t]here is no more obvious form of sex stereotyping than making a determination that a person should conform to heterosexuality.” The Supreme Court has never held that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimination and a determination on this issue will have to wait until choice of the next Supreme Court Justice and an appropriate case.

Courts wrestle with sexual orientation discrimination

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Fair Housing Act, Sexual Orientation

The law of sex discrimination has long suffered under the problem of distinguishing between discrimination based on sex and discrimination based on sexual orientation. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia, as well as over one hundred municipalities, have laws prohibiting discrimination in the housing market on the basis of sexual orientation. Those jurisdictions include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. Congress has so far refused to pass a statute prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations.  Federal fair housing law does not facially prohibit sexual orientation discrimination but it does prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. So far courts have not accepted the argument that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. Christiansen v. Omnicom Group, Inc., 2016 …

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HUD Guidance on discriminatory refusals to rent to tenants with criminal records

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Fair Housing Act, Leaseholds, Real Estate Transactions

Now that the Supreme Court has definitively found that the federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §§3601-3631, prohibits practices that have a disparate impact on protected groups, see Tex. Dept of Hous. & Comty. Affairs v. Inclusive Comtys. Project, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2507 (U.S. 2015), consequences of that decision are becoming more clear. On April 4, 2016, the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a Guidance on the application of the Fair Housing Act to decisions by landlords and sellers related to tenants and buyers with criminal records. Office of General Counsel on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records by Providers of Housing and Real-Estate Related Transactions (Apr. 4, 2016). The Guidance notes that a greater percentage of African Americans and Latinos than whites have criminal records. The refusal to rent or sell to persons with criminal records may …

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Second Circuit follows HUD regulation requiring plaintiffs in disparate impact cases to prove a less discriminatory way to achieve the defendant’s legitimate interest

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Fair Housing Act, Transactions, Zoning

In MHANY Mgmt., Inc. v. County of Nassau, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 5441 (2d Cir. 2016), the Second Circuit adopted the burdens of proof for disparate impact claims under the Fair Housing Act spelled in the regulations of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Those rules place the burden on the plaintiff to prove a discriminatory effect either by showing a disparate impact on a protected group or a segregative effect. If that can be shown, the burden shifts to the defendant to show a “substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest” that justifies the discriminatory effect. At that point, the HUD regulations, now adopted and approved by the Second Circuit, put the burden of proof on the plaintiff to show that the “substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest” of the defendant “could be served by another practice that has a less discriminatory effect.” 24 C.F.R. § 100.500(c)(3). The Second Circuit, and some other Circuits, …

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Supreme Court will decide whether a bakery must sell wedding cake to a same-sex couple as required by Colorado public accommodations law

/ Antidiscrimination Law, Consumer Protection, Religious Freedom, Trespass

On June 26, 2017, the Supreme Court took certiorari in this case under the name, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights Comm’n. (No. 16-111). The Colorado Court of Appeals has affirmed the Civil Rights Division’s that a bakery must sell wedding cakes to same-sex couples if they would ordinarily do so to male-female couples. Mullins v. Masterpiece, 2015 Colo. App. LEXIS 121, 2015 COA 115 (Colo. App. 2015). State law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public accommodations, and neither the state statute itself nor the constitution entitles the providers of goods and services to engage in proscribed discrimination for religious reasons. The court rejected the bakery’s contention that it was acting on the basis of an opposition to same-sex marriage rather than an intent to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The court held that it did not matter that the bakery would sell baked goods other than a …

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