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RE: Docket No. FR-6540-P-02: HUD’s Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Disparate Impact Standard; Amendments to HUD’s Title VI Regulations
The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and the undersigned organizations urge the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to withdraw its proposal to eliminate
regulations prohibiting unjustified disparate impacts in federally-funded programs.1 Federal taxpayer dollars should help everyone, not leave some communities behind. For more than 50 years, Black communities and other communities of color have relied on HUD’s disparate impact rules enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to address funding recipients’ policies that appear neutral but cause disproportionate harm where there is no legitimate reason for the policy.2 These regulations help achieve the purpose of Title VI by ensuring “public funds, to which all taxpayers of all races contribute, not be spent in any fashion which encourages, entrenches, subsidizes or results in racial discrimination.”3 Yet HUD now proposes to eliminate disparate impact from the current rules while failing to provide a reasoned basis for rescinding these longstanding protections. We urge HUD to withdraw the proposed rule.
I. HUD’s Title VI Disparate Impact Regulations Help the Agency Prevent and Address Racial Discrimination, Creating Substantial Reliance Interests.
Since 1973, HUD’s Title VI regulations have helped ensure all people can access federally-funded programs free from discrimination.4 HUD’s Title VI regulations not only
prevent federal funding recipients from intentionally discriminating on the basis of race, color, and national origin but ban policies and practices that have the “effect of subjecting persons to
discrimination because of their race, color, or national origin,” regardless of intent.5 Applying disparate impact protections in these programs does not make every racial disparity unlawful, but allows HUD to examine whether a policy causes significant racial harm, serves a legitimate need, or could be replaced by a less discriminatory approach. HUD has used its authority under these rules to challenge policies and practices that created unfair barriers in housing and disaster recovery programs and to address environmental justice concerns. Without HUD’s disparate impact rules, unjustified policies and practices by federal funding recipients may go unchecked.
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