Required for Brokers and Managing Brokers Renewing their License
This comprehensive 6 credit hour course will give you a thorough understanding of the historical and societal context that shaped fair housing law, the current legal framework intended to prevent housing discrimination, how to recognize protected groups and protected activity under the law, and methods for reducing risk of liability for discrimination or disparate impact.
With this course, you'll be able to confidently serve all of your clients, regardless of their background or protected status, and avoid any potential legal trouble down the road. This course is required for all brokers and managing brokers renewing their licenses between June 1, 2022 and June 1, 2024, so don't wait - enroll today!
The United States has a long history of racial discrimination and segregation, including in the housing sector. Throughout history, many Americans have been denied access to lending, neighborhoods, and financial programs. This issue has been prevalent not only in the South but also in Washington.
Racism broadly refers to prejudice or discrimination based on a person's race. It can be categorized into multiple types, but this discussion will focus on four key types: structural, institutional, internalized, and interpersonal.
Structural racism stems from historical attitudes and practices that have developed over generations. It permeates into institutional structures, policies, and cultural norms. These systemic arrangements can disadvantage people of color while perpetuating the status quo.
An example of structural racism is when policies implicitly benefit white individuals over minority groups. Structural racism often intersects with institutional racism, enforcing the biases embedded in societal systems.
In their 1967 book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton discussed these concepts.
Systemic racism can be thought of as an invisible system that assumes superiority individually, ideologically, and institutionally for white people. Systemic racism is something that can occur in a society both consciously and unconsciously.
While individuals may not see themselves as racist, they can benefit from systems that provide additional benefits to white people.
Activist Peggy McIntosh developed a quiz to help people identify their participant in systemic racism by seeing how many of the following statements they agree with:
The quiz reveals certain privileges that can be taken for granted. They may not be seen or considered daily, but they still exist. By thinking about alternative answers to each statement, we illustrate how different people answer these questions affirmatively or disagree. Some people may not be able to respond "yes" to the previous quiz questions, highlighting privileges that others are not granted.
A 2017 study by Katherine DeCelles from Harvard illustrates societal benefits related to job hiring, reflecting systemic privileges.
Institutional racism is a subset of structural racism, which includes the practical rules and policies an institution has in place that better serve white people while not providing the same levels of service or even harming minorities.
During the Depression, the country faced a housing shortage, and the federal government stepped in to help alleviate the issue. In doing so, they created programs that helped to segregate housing throughout the United States in a process known as redlining. Redlining came about with the formation of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) around 1934. The FHA committed to ensuring unpaid balances of borrowers who couldn't make payments. What this did was allow many to become homeowners and qualify for loans since lenders were protected from default.
The FHA underwriting manual included maps defining undesirable areas that were clearly minority communities. In this manual, those areas could not receive sane mortgage insurance policies. You might think that this wasn't as nefarious or clear as I'm making it out to be, but to quote the manual itself:
This policy of segregation is even more apparent when you look at one of these maps.
Spokane is another of the metro areas which had a map from HOLC, redlining certain areas:
In addition to the federal government segregated neighborhoods, many of the covenants in the deeds of neighborhoods were restrictive based on race. For example, some of the deeds stated, "No race or nationality other than the white race shall use or occupy any building on any lot."
Tacoma is another city in Washington which has a "security map" from the government:
Interpersonal racism occurs between individual people. This type of racism is the one that is the most overt or well-publicized. It happens when a person takes action as a result of stereotypes that they hold. It might be a hate crime, housing discrimination, negative comments about minorities, or racial profiling. Since these incidents are more prominent, they are more likely to be reported in the media.
However, just because this type of racism is written in the press does not mean that most of the time that it happens, it makes it to the media-quite the opposite.
Internalized racism can come in a couple of forms through the individuals who receive benefits from historical events, media, and institutional power. The second is from the group that is being oppressed. Over time, a group of people that is consistently disadvantaged can have attitudes that develop and impact their sense of self. Within the advantaged group, this can lead to a sense of superiority and inflated self-image. Examples include cognitive dissonance and paternalism.
Discrimination can be either indirect or direct. However, it Is easier to spot the direct kind. For example, if a business turns you away because of your sexual orientation. This would be an example of direct discrimination. Direct discrimination is when you or someone else is treated differently because of who they are.
Other times, you or someone else may be treated the same, but it hurts you or the other person to a greater degree than others because of who you are. This is also a form of discrimination.
An example would be a policy that is discriminatory against someone with a handicap. A person may be treated like everyone else, but they are negatively impacted because of who they are.
This is an example of what's known as disparate impact. It's a form of indirect discrimination. The US Supreme Court held in Griggs v Duke Power Company (1971) that disparate impact (indirect discrimination) is illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case centered around African-American employees at a power generation plant who were required to have a high school diploma to pass an intelligence test to be employed or transfer jobs within the plant. The requirement was not intended to determine if someone could perform a particular job or category of job. The long and short of it is that for requirements to be lawful, they must be job-related.
This does not preclude an employer from instituting a policy that disadvantages a person, provided an objective justification exists.
Don Sr. has been in the real estate business for over 40 years, working as a broker, running real estate offices, and developing property. He's the founder of Realestateschool.org and it's principal instructor. Don Sr. has a teaching degree from the University of Washington and has been teaching real estate for over 35 years.
