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The District Court for the District of Columbia has Ruled on HUD’s Disparate Impact Regulation



The HUD regulation dealing with the theory of discrimination under “disparate impact” was reviewed and ruled on by Judge Richard J. Leon, for the District of Columbia. He ruled that the administration cannot rely on "disparate impact" to judge discrimination. This is another attack on the theory and civil rights groups that use the theory to sue parties when there is no overt intentional discrimination.
Judge Leon went on to criticize the administration , Judge Leon said the administration's bid to establish disparate impact as a legitimate measure of discrimination showed "hutzpah (bordering on desperation)." "This is yet another example of an administrative agency trying desperately to write into law that which Congress never intended to sanction," Judge Leon wrote in a scorching opinion that described Obama administration attorneys' arguments as "nothing less than an artful misinterpretation" of the law.
HUD’s position in passing the regulation is that Congress authorized disparate impact analysis in the Fair Housing Act.

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