What is discrimination?
With regard to civil rights and fair housing laws, discrimination occurs when a person is treated differently than another person based on class or category, such as race, sex. etc. Examples of housing discrimination may be as overt as the refusal to rent to someone based on his or her race. Other examples may be less obvious, such as requiring someone to submit to a rental application process that differs from that of other applicants simply because he or she has a disability.
If a landlord, seller, insurance agent, or mortgage broker engages in discriminatory activities because of the race, color, religion, sex, family status, disability, national origin, or military status of a prospective or current tenant or buyer, they may be held liable under state and federal fair housing laws.
What is the Fair Housing Act?
The Fair Housing Act is a federal act which aims to ensure equal housing opportunity by prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings, as well as other housing-related transactions, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status (including minor children living in household), and disability. These characteristics are referred to as protected classes. State and local laws may extend the protections afforded by the Fair Housing Act to other groups of people by adding protected classes to their fair housing policies. Such additional protected classes may include ancestry, military status, sexual orientation, gender identity, source of income, etc.
The Federal Protected Classes.
With the passing of the Fair Housing Act as a part of the Civil Rights Bill passed just 7 days after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The original four protected classes at the time were: Race, Color, Religion, and National Origin. In the following decades: Sex, Family Status, and Disability.
Discrimination in its simplest terms means to make a distinction. What makes an act of discrimination illegal (based on the fair housing act) would be: to make a distinction about someone BECAUSE OF their protected class.
