We are a couple weeks late on the news, but Overlawyered reports that the tremendously successful website craigslist.org, which hosts individual ads for anything from housing to sports equipment and personals, is being sued by a group of Chicago-based lawyers for violating the federal Fair Housing Act. The site currently advises any would-be posters to avoid "discrimination" in their ads, and removes any postings which have been the subject of complaints, but the lawsuit (see the filed complaint here) would compel craigslist to pre-censor all posts.
The Fair Housing Act is already enough of a blow to the right to freely associate, but this lawsuit would prevent individual tenants from so much as describing what qualities they desire in a roommate. Are you a woman who would prefer to live with another female? A guy looking for someone close to his own age? Or even someone mentioning that their apartment is "across from the Catholic church"? Tough luck - mentioning any of these things in an ad would be considered "housing discrimination" and your carefully crafted ad would be screened out. Fortunately, it seems that the weight of precedent is against the "plaintiffs" - themselves just a group of lawyers, rather than any aggrieved party. Even if successful, such a law would only serve to waste the time of all people involved, as the tenant would be forced to deal with each applicant individually to get the same simple information that an ad would have screened for.
(The psychology of discrimination comes into play here also: if I read an ad that states a preference for blacks as roommates, I am unlikely to be offended since there was no harm done to me, and in fact harm potentially averted since I was saved the emotional distress of having had my request rejected. If the ad instead said "no whites, asians or hispanics or indians, please," there might be more room for offense even though the meaning is more or less identical. Banning preferences in ads altogether will not make them go away, however, and only makes it much more likely that someone will experience individual rejection on sex/racial/religious grounds.)
(Can you identify that unfair house in photo? And who paid the rent?)
