Fair housing groups slam newly finalized disparate impact rule change

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s final rule changing its implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s disparate impact standard took effect Thursday, and the agency immediately faced calls to scrap the rule change. HUD first proposed the new rule, which would amend its interpretation of the standard, last August. The change replaces the prior three-step threshold for proving fair housing violations with a five-step process that would require regulators to prove intentional discrimination. Critics of the rule change say that HUD has made the standard basically worthless by setting too high a bar to prove discrimination. “Practically speaking, the new HUD rule would sideline disparate impact as a usable legal tool to tackle systemic housing discrimination,” the National Housing Law Project said in a statement. “That means landlords, lenders, and other housing providers would be free to engage in activities