InfoBytes Blog
HUD proposes restoring 2013 discriminatory effects rule
On June 25, HUD published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would rescind the agency’s 2020 disparate impact regulation (2020 Rule) and reinstate the agency’s 2013 rule (2013 Rule). The 2020 Rule (covered by a Buckley Special Alert) was intended to align its disparate impact regulation, adopted in 2013, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. The 2020 Rule included, among other things, a modification of the three-step burden-shifting framework in its 2013 Rule, several new elements that plaintiffs must show to establish that a policy or practice has a “discriminatory effect,” and specific defenses that defendants can assert to refute disparate impact claims. Prior to the effective date of the 2020 Rule, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction staying HUD’s implementation and enforcement of the 2020 Rule.
After a period of reconsideration, “HUD is proposing to recodify its previously promulgated rule titled, ‘Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Discriminatory Effects Standard’[], which, as of the date of publication of this [NPRM], remains in effect due to the preliminary injunction,” the NPRM stated, adding that HUD “believes the 2013 Rule better states Fair Housing Act jurisprudence and is more consistent with the Fair Housing Act's remedial purposes.” HUD emphasized that the 2013 Rule codified longstanding judicial and agency consensus concerning discriminatory effects law. “Under the 2013 rule, the discriminatory effects framework was straightforward: a policy that had a discriminatory effect on a protected class was unlawful if it did not serve a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest or if a less discriminatory alternative could also serve that interest,” HUD said in its press release. “The 2020 rule complicated that analysis by adding new pleading requirements, new proof requirements, and new defenses, all of which made it harder to establish that a policy violates the Fair Housing Act. HUD now proposes to return to the 2013 rule’s straightforward analysis.” Comments on the NPRM are due August 24.