Craigslist Fair Housing Act Suit Dismissed

tigersaw writes, "A federal judge in Chicago has dismissed the suit against Craigslist brought by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which accused the site of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by not actively filtering out housing advertisements that include discriminatory language. Craigslist cited their community-based flagging system as an already effective means of limiting such posts. However, the court held that the site was nonetheless protected by the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), which shields Web forums from liability for ads and opinions posted by their users."

Comments

Congress nailed that one, and rightly so

[macadamia_harold]

However, the court held that the site was nonetheless protected by the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), which shields Web forums from liability for ads and opinions posted by their users.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one. And Congress is certainly full of both, so it makes sense that they'd put two and two together on this one.

Re:Freedom of association is just not that popular

[Anonymous Coward]

When the bigot chooses to engage in commerce, he loses some of his rights to associate with whom he pleases.

If he wants to let other bigots live in his places for free, no prob. They can do what they want (and I hope they all die in a fire.)

But if he wants to engage in commerce and earn a profit, he does so with society's help in terms of market regulation and authority to enforce contracts. Engage in commerce? I say all of us should be able to compete on a level playing field.

In short, keep your bigoted acts private and you're fine. Air them in public and fuck you.

There's always a way around the law.

[Jawood]

Here's an example - background and drug checks. I'm not going to go into the reasons, but black folks as a percentage of population are incarcerated more than the general population, many because of (quite minor) drug related offenses. Don't want black folks working for you, have a stringent background check and drug testing. You'll get rid of more (as a percentage) black candidates than white.

Don't want to rent to black/spanish/white folks, someone with a black/spanish/wasp sounding name calls, tell them the apartment was just rented, or, when they come, just make the place look like shit or play really LOUD MUSIC.

I'm sure we all can think of ways to do it. But my point is try, just try and prove they're acting in a discriminating manner. If someone really doesn't want you there, they'll figure out a way. And yes, I agree with you, my life would be quite miserable in that situation so I'd rather they just say, "I don't want (insert group here) living here."

Now, I guess maybe laws are needed if it was really endemic throughout an area - like 1960s and earlier. But these says, I have never witnessed racism in the workplace (27 years in workdforce) or with housing. I am not saying it doesn't exist, I am just saying it's rare. And if someone is that much of a bigot, let him wallow around and miss out on opportunities because of it: his loss. There are plenty of other opportunites for folks these days.

Re:There's always a way around the law.

[elrous0]

Overt discrimination is rare these days, even in the U.S. deep South. Discrimination has become MUCH more sophisticated than anything as crude as "Whites Only" signs. To effectively segregate your schools, for example, you only need gerrymander your school districts so all the white, middle class, and wealthier neighborhoods are in one school district and all the inner-city, poor, and predominately black neighborhoods are in another.

-Eric

Re:There's always a way around the law.

[veganboyjosh]

i dunno which south you're talking about, but the one i lived in had private schools for the whites, and public schools for the blacks.

i was involved in a higher education program while i was there, and part of my job included taking our students (mostly high school dropouts, all of them were black, in this case) to get their library cards at the public library. some had never set foot in the library. or knew they could check out books for free. one time, i was showing a group of students the newspaper archive for our town of about 400 people. they got into looking up the history of the homecoming court, for whatever reason. going back to 1965, the entire court was black. in 1964, 100% white. what happened that made it all switch? the academies(private schools) came along and the white kids suddenly had their own schools back.

when was i there? 2001.

yeah, there are some districts--think the ones with money--who try to integrate, and some who have done ahalf decent job. but the segregation is still so ingrained and institutionalized that it'll be around for many more years to come.

Barry Goldwater

[geoffrobinson]

In 1964 Barry Goldwater took heat because, as a libertarian, he didn't support the Civil Rights Act because he believed that the public accomadation clauses since they violate the 1st amendments rights of freedom of association.

Goldwater understood the ideals too, but stood up for freedom even when it isn't popular.

The ideal was so good and tantalizing that people either ignored the fact they were violating this right or rationalized the problem away.

We all do something like that. And I hope the people who complain about the Patriot Act but support public accommadation keep this in mind. If you are against the Patriot Act, are you against security? Maybe. Maybe not.

Re:Freedom of association is just not that popular

[pgaffney]

I and all others have a right to an economy that as much as possible allows anyone to participate on equal terms irregardless of each of our own racial, religious and sexual identity. Necessary to this is that you don't allow people to publish commercial speech that specifically excludes a person on the basis of that person's group membership.
Free association is important, but we need to make sure our economy respects all human beings.
Filthy, thieving robots need not apply.

Re:Terms of Use

[tompaulco]

A landlord cannot advertise that the apartment is near a church or synagogue because this implies an illegal preference based on religion.
False. A Landlord cannot advertise that the apartment is near a church or synagague because because some big city lawyer will sue them for illegal preference based on religion, when in fact, they just may want their potential tenants to know what is nearby, so that they won't be falsely representing the surroundings of the property.
The Mexican restaurant isn't a big problem, but saying the neighborhood is Hispanic implies that anyone else is not welcome.
False. It implies that the potential renter should be aware that the neighborhood is hispanic in case the renter would or would not like to live in such a neighborhood.
"Godly, Christian Male" expresses both a religious and a gender preference; but it's fine to require cleanliness.
As a landlord myself, I don't make such distinctions, but I believe that a small mom and pop landlord business should be able to rent or not rent to whomever they want. It's their house, if they want to limit their target audience by insisting on a Godly Christian Male, then they should be allowed to do so.
The ad about "2 guys in their mid-twenties who throw parties all the time" is illegal based on a gender preference; but the landlord could ask for people who don't throw parties. The last four ads may sound fine, but they imply that a family with children would not be welcome.
We have houses that we happily market as being a poor choice for families. We also limit the number of people that can live in each of our houses, based on square footage, number of bedrooms, and other factors. Some houses are not well suited to families, and no one should be forced by law to take a tenant that won't be comfortable in the house.
Some of the postings on craigslist seem to be slightly discriminatory. Most of them I find to be just attempting to let the tenant know about the neighborhood. While I am aware that it is illegal to discriminate based on neighborhood racial makeup, I don't believe it should be my job as a landlord to enforce the potential tenant not being a racist, so I am happy to tell them the demographics if they ask and if I know them.