Rethinking Conciliation under the Fair Housing Act
![handle is hein.journals/tenn67 and id is 435 raw text is: RETHINKING CONCILIATION UNDER THE FAIR
HOUSING ACT
I. INTRODUCTION
For more than thirty years, the policy of the United States has been to
provide everyone the opportunity for fair housing.' Despite the efforts and
resources devoted to this cause, housing discrimination persists as a
pervasive problem that affects the lives of over two million people each
year.' Why does housing discrimination continue despite the government's
efforts? Critics of the original Fair Housing Act of 1968 (FHA)3 attributed the
Act's ineffectiveness to lack of enforcement.4 Voluntary conciliation was the
primary feature of fair housing enforcement5 under the FHA,6 and
landowners who were accused of discrimination often did not take
conciliation seriously because their tenants lacked the resources to pursue
other remedies when the conciliation process failed.7 As one politician noted,
1. 42 U.S.C. § 3601 (1994) (It is the policy of the United States to provide, within
constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States.). The FHA was
originally passed in 1968 as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-284, 82
Stat. 73, 81 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601-3631 (1994 & Supp. III 1997).
2. SeeH.R. REP.No. 100-711,at 15(1988),reprintedin 1988U.S.C.C.A.N. 2173,2176
(Twenty years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, discrimination ... in housing
continue[s] to be pervasive.). In 1999, HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo stated that [flor more
than 30 years, discrimination in housing has been prohibited under law. Yet audits of the rental
and sales market show that an estimated 2.5 million instances of discrimination still occur
annually nationwide. FY2000 VA HUD Appropriations: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on
VA, HUD and Independent Agencies of the Senate Comm. on Appropriations, 106th Cong.
(1999) (statement of Andrew Cuomo, Secretary, HUD), available in 1999 WL 246785.
3. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601-3619 (Supp. V 1965-1969) (amended 1988).
4. See H.R. REP. No. 100-711, at 16 (1988), reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2173,
2177.
5. H.R. REP. No. 100-711, at 34 (1988), reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2173, 2195.
6. See 42 U.S.C. § 1310 (a) (Supp. V 1965-1969) (amended 1988) (If the Secretary
decides to resolve the complaint, he shall proceed to try to eliminate or correct the alleged
housing discrimination practice by informal methods of conference, conciliation, and
persuasion.). Conciliation is currently defined as the attempted resolution of issues raised
by such complaint, or by the investigation of a complaint, through informal negotiations
involving the aggrieved person, the respondent, and the Assistant Secretary. 42 U.S.C. § 3602
(1) (1994); see also 24 C.F.R. § 103.9 (1999). As a term of art, conciliation means [a]
settlement of a dispute in an agreeable manner, a process in which a neutral person meets
with the parties to a dispute ... and explores how the dispute might be resolved. BLACK'S
LAW DICTIONARY 284 (7th ed. 1999).
7. See generally Richard B. Simring, Note, The Impact of Federal Antidiscrimination
Laws on Housingfor People with Mental Disabilities, 59 GEO. WASH. L. REv. 413,414 (1991)
(Moreover, victims of discrimination in public housing are less likely to wind up in court](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/tenn67&div=17&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Rethinking Conciliation under the Fair Housing Act
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