How to Violate a Federal Civil Rights Law and Get Away With It

I’ve written before about the absurdities of “government speak” before, but a new memo from HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity takes things to a whole new level.

Since its passage in 1968, the Federal Fair Housing Act has prohibited landlords from making discriminatory statements in housing advertisements. (Note: It also applies liability to everyone involved in the process of publishing the ad, but that’s another post for another time.) Just as classified ads have moved from the printed newspaper to the online classified website, so too have landlords’ discriminatory statements. This prohibition is unique in federal law, one of the only limitations on speech rooted in civil rights’ protections.

And HUD has now published clear instructions on how to violate it and avoid prosecution.

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