U.S. Fair-Housing Efforts Debated
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THE Justice Department brought more housing-discrimination cases in 1984 than in any year since 1978, a Justice Department official said at a seminar on fair housing and fair lending held late last month at a two-day seminar at the Summit Hotel in New York. But another participant, Prof. Lawrence Grosberg of New York Law School, disputed the suggestion that the department under President Reagan had moved vigorously to root out housing segregation. The law school was one of the cosponsors of the seminar. ”The claims that the civil-rights bureau of the Justice Department has been more active in pursuing civil rights are unfounded, distorted and misleading,” he said. ”It doesn’t reflect the tenor and thrust of what they’re doing.” Under the Federal Fair Housing Act, it is illegal to deny the rental or sale of housing on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or national origin. The law also prohibits discrimination in making home improvement and construction loans, as well as in mortgage lending. The state and city of New York have also passed laws prohibiting discrimination in housing. The seminar, for lawyers and officials of lending institutions, covered the effects of banking deregulation on mortgage lending, fair-housing issues in New York, the filing of fair housing cases in court and a review of relevant cases. Walter Gorman, acting chief of the housing and civil enforcement section of the department’s civil-rights division, said the department brought 22 cases last year and will probably bring close to the same number this year. As many as 200 complaints are received each year, he said. Most are investigated and the resulting yield of 10 to 15 percent that actually wind up in court, he said, has been the traditional proportion since the 1960’s. Cases brought by Federal officials in the last year involve apartment developers who discriminate in renting and who steer blacks to predominantly black housing. In Delaware County, Ohio, and in Houston, officials filed suit against court recorders who recorded deeds with restrictive covenants. In Houston, the Government also sued the University Oaks Civic Club, whose members had signed covenants promising they would not sell their homes to blacks. Mr. Gorman said the Government also filed suits against owners and marketers of time-share condominiums in Texas and Alabama who refused to sell to blacks. Perhaps the most dramatic Federal action in-Panelists Here Differ On Zeal of Reagan Justice Department volved the Redwine family of Muncie, Ind. After Federal authorities brought a criminal complaint, Samuel G. Redwine and his father, Clifford G. Redwine, were convicted of throwing rocks and firebombing a black family’s home and were sentenced to six years in prison. Yet critics like William Taylor, Director of the Center for National Policy Review at Catholic University in Washington, insist that the actions now being brought by Federal authorities are ”nickel-and-dime cases.” He recalled with favor the latter days of the Carter Administration, when the Justice Department was attacking zoning laws that prevented construction of low- and moderate-income housing. Mr. Taylor praised the department for filing suit against the city of Cicero, Ill. In that instance, the Government alleged that town officials had acted as part of a practice to discriminate against blacks in housing and in hiring city workers. The suit, filed in January 1983, has not gone to trial. ”The Reagan Administration talks about 22 cases in ‘84,” he said. ”Prior to ‘84, their record was awful. They brought only two cases in their first 20 months.” According to Mr. Gorman, the decline in cases began during the Carter Administration, when the method of handling fair-housing complaints was changed and United States Attorneys around the country were told to take them on. In 1983 the Justice Department again began pursuing the complaints from Washington. On another note, Mr. Grosberg said judges were increasingly awarding greater damages in housing discrimination cases. In the last four years, he said, 20 cases - 11 in the New York area -produced awards of $25,000 or more. He cited the case of two black air-traffic controllers, Alethia Futtrell and Jacqueline Grayson, who were awarded $565,000 in an apartment discrimination case in Patchogue, L.I. The defendant planned to appeal and the women settled for $360,000. More : query.nytimes.com |