美国国家公共电台 NPR A New Trump Rule Could Weaken A Civil Rights Era Housing Discrimination Law

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The Trump¹ administration is moving to weaken the civil rights-era Fair Housing Act. That's according to housing advocates, who say a proposed rule by the administration would make it much harder to bring lawsuits³ alleging⁴ discrimination in housing. Conservative groups applaud the move and say it would stop frivolous⁵ lawsuits. NPR's Chris Arnold has obtained a draft of the rule, which is not yet public. And he has this report.

CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE⁶: The rule targets a powerful weapon that's used in discrimination cases. It's called disparate impact. And that means, basically, to show discrimination in a lawsuit², you don't have to prove that there's some guy working at, say, a bank who refuses to make loans to people of color. You just have to show that a company has a business practice that, on its face, may not purposefully discriminate⁷, but it has that effect.

NIKITRA BAILEY: It's important because it allows us to really get at discrimination that's not intentional⁸.

ARNOLD: That's Nikitra Bailey. She's a lawyer with the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending. And she says the Trump administration's new rule would severely⁹ restrict this very important tool for fighting discrimination in housing.

BAILEY: It's huge because it allows us to have remedies for a large set of communities without having to demonstrate each individual action of discrimination.

ARNOLD: OK. Here's how this works. A fair housing group is, right now, in the midst of suing Bank of America. It's alleging that when the bank foreclosed on houses, in recent years, it treated the vacant houses very differently in white versus¹⁰ minority neighborhoods. Wanda Onafuwa lives next to one of those houses in Baltimore. She works in accounting¹¹, owns her own house and raised her kids there. She says it's a nice, quiet street. But after Bank of America foreclosed on the house next door...

WANDA ONAFUWA: The grass wasn't being mowed¹². There were no windows upstairs. So you have a bad rainstorm - and I don't know what was going on with the roof. Water would get in. There were rats running around.

ARNOLD: Onafuwa says she called the city and the bank repeatedly. Not much changed. Then some guy started living in the house.

ONAFUWA: It was a squatter¹³ living in that house. It was a guy that was going in and out of that house. It was no electricity or anything on it 'cause you never - it was - it looked just pitch black.

ARNOLD: Lisa Rice is the president of the National Fair Housing Alliance, which is bringing the lawsuit. She says her group looked at foreclosed houses in more than 70 different communities across the country with comparable homeownership rates and other similarities. And...

LISA RICE: You know, white communities that we looked at - the story was completely different. The grass is mowed. The doors were secure. The windows were not broken. We didn't see trash and debris¹⁴.

ARNOLD: Bank of America said in a statement that it denies the claims in the lawsuit and that it's committed to, quote, "sustainable home ownership for multicultural¹⁵ clients and communities." But remember. A key point of disparate impact lawsuits is that companies might be discriminating¹⁶ even if they don't intend to. The Supreme¹⁷ Court, in 2015, upheld disparate impact while also imposing¹⁸ some limitations. Still, many corporations and conservatives do not like it.

ROGER CLEGG: There are always going to be racially disproportionate results for any policy.

ARNOLD: Roger Clegg is president of the Center for Equal Opportunity. It's a conservative think tank that focuses on civil rights issues. And he says these disparate impact cases are often unfair to defendants¹⁹ because they find discrimination where it's not actually happening.

CLEGG: If you have a landlord who says, you know, I'm not going to rent people with a history of violent crime, the fact that that has a racially disproportionate result does not make it discrimination.

ARNOLD: So Clegg says this legal approach results in a lot of unfair lawsuits. And he says the Trump administration's new rule will provide clarity about the limits of its use. Nikitra Bailey says, though, the rule goes way beyond that.

BAILEY: It really makes it more difficult to bring disparate impact cases. And then it limits the damages for discrimination.

ARNOLD: Bailey says with African American homeownership rates at their lowest level in more than 50 years, this could set up more roadblocks. For its part, the Housing and Urban Development Department says it can't comment yet. But in an earlier statement, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said, quote, "HUD remains²⁰ committed to making sure that housing-related policies and practices treat people fairly."

Chris Arnold, NPR News.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 lawsuit   

n.诉讼，控诉

参考例句：

• They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
• He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。

3 lawsuits   

n.诉讼( lawsuit的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Lawsuits involving property rights and farming and grazing rights increased markedly. 涉及财产权，耕作与放牧权的诉讼案件显著地增加。 来自辞典例句
• I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England. 全英国的人算我官司打得最多，赢的也多，输的也多。 来自辞典例句

4 alleging   

断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• His reputation was blemished by a newspaper article alleging he'd evaded his taxes. 由于报上一篇文章声称他曾逃税，他的名誉受到损害。
• This our Peeress declined as unnecessary, alleging that her cousin Thornhill's recommendation would be sufficient. 那位贵人不肯，还说不必，只要有她老表唐希尔保荐就够了。

5 frivolous   

adj.轻薄的；轻率的

参考例句：

• This is a frivolous way of attacking the problem.这是一种轻率敷衍的处理问题的方式。
• He spent a lot of his money on frivolous things.他在一些无聊的事上花了好多钱。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 discriminate   

v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待

参考例句：

• You must learn to discriminate between facts and opinions.你必须学会把事实和看法区分出来。
• They can discriminate hundreds of colours.他们能分辨上百种颜色。

8 intentional   

adj.故意的，有意（识）的

参考例句：

• Let me assure you that it was not intentional.我向你保证那不是故意的。
• His insult was intentional.他的侮辱是有意的。

9 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

10 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

11 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

12 mowed   

v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The enemy were mowed down with machine-gun fire. 敌人被机枪的火力扫倒。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Men mowed the wide lawns and seeded them. 人们割了大片草地的草，然后在上面播种。 来自辞典例句

13 squatter   

n.擅自占地者

参考例句：

• The squatter settlements originally came into being through illegal land invasions. 违章建筑区最初是通过非法的土地占有而形成的。
• Squatter control is maintained by regular patrols and hut-to-hut checks. 当局定期逐户视察所有寮屋，以收管制之效。

14 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

15 multicultural   

adj.融合多种文化的，多种文化的

参考例句：

• Children growing up in a multicultural society.在多元文化社会中长大的孩子们。
• The school has been attempting to bring a multicultural perspective to its curriculum.这所学校已经在尝试将一种多元文化视角引入其课程。

16 discriminating   

a.有辨别能力的

参考例句：

• Due caution should be exercised in discriminating between the two. 在区别这两者时应该相当谨慎。
• Many businesses are accused of discriminating against women. 许多企业被控有歧视妇女的做法。

17 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

18 imposing   

adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的

参考例句：

• The fortress is an imposing building.这座城堡是一座宏伟的建筑。
• He has lost his imposing appearance.他已失去堂堂仪表。

19 defendants   

被告( defendant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The courts heard that the six defendants had been coerced into making a confession. 法官审判时发现6位被告人曾被迫承认罪行。
• As in courts, the defendants are represented by legal counsel. 与法院相同，被告有辩护律师作为代表。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

20 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。