William H. Sorkpor v. The Harlo Fenway

This is a housing discrimination case of national importance. It sets back “the policy of the United States to provide within constitutional limitations for fair housing throughout the United States”42 U.S.C. §3601. It shows a total departure by the lower-courts from Supreme Court precedents, and congressional intent in construing the federal fair housing laws,—i.e., Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. §3604(a)(l970) and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. §1982(1968). Title VIII and Section 1982 protect at least four types of minority home seekers’ interests, The first is the V individual minority home seeker’s interest in, buying or renting the home of his or her choice, — limited only by his or her available finances. This interest is also the black home seeker’s consumer interest in equal spending power. As the Supreme Court .once noted, Section 1982 was enacted- “to assure that a pBllar in the hands ofa Negro can purchase the same thing as buy a dollar in the hands ofa white man”. stones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, 443 (1968). When the facts underlying a housing discrimination claim show a violation of the plain language of 42 U.S C. §3604(a)— i.e., “refuse to sell or rent” and “refuse to negotiate a sale or rental”,—and a minority home-seeker is subsequently denied a dwelling, the only remaining question for the courts to find liability is: Whether Congress intended the Fair Housing Act to be construed — technically and broadly—to ensure that, the Title VIII protection of a minority home-seeker’s interest in equal spending power is preserved; or, whether it is the intent of Congress for the courts to disregard the protection as well as the discriminatoryeffects standard when they substitute “a dollar in the handd’ of a minority home-seeker with racially correlating criteria, in search of intent to discriminate.