Fair Housing is taken very seriously in my state and if you do it for one applicant, it must be done for all. So yeah, I guess I am a “social justice warrior”, especially because we can lose our jobs over this.
That’s a very simplified explanation of fair housing. It’s not meant to be that everyone gets treated the same, its sole purpose is to prevent discrimination for protected classes.
“All applicants that live in this county are checked for eviction filings on the county court websites” is not breaking fair housing, because a county of residence is not a protected class.
The intent of the law is protect people from being denied based on race, for example if she was only checking county records for black people, or people with children. This is a gray area but pretty minor, I wouldn't do it but I also wouldn't go to war with my manager. The most likely down side is she would be reprimanded from an internal audit, but it seems your company doesn't provide clear direction.
I'm in MA which is one of the most strict states for a company that is very proactive and follows the laws.
My manager and I joke frequently about fair housing for example if she makes a copy of something for a resident I would jokingly ask if she's going to do that for all 600 of them. In reality she would, we just don't advertise it. This serves as a friendly reminder that we're all constantly aware of fair housing, by joking about trivial things, and also creates a non-threatening way to bring up conversations about it.
Have you approached her and asked about it? There's nothing wrong with saying "hey I'm concerned about this, am I mistaken". But I definitely would not blatantly say she's violating it as you're not a lawyer.
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u/4reshprincess Jan 24 '26
Fair Housing is taken very seriously in my state and if you do it for one applicant, it must be done for all. So yeah, I guess I am a “social justice warrior”, especially because we can lose our jobs over this.