Opening Roads for Open Housing

STATE COURTS

Neither the Supreme Court nor the U.S. Congress has yet been willing to make open housing the law of the land. But a few state legislatures have not been so reluctant to move, and state courts are prepared to back them up. Both Chicago's and New York State's open-housing laws have now passed significant tests in their respective state courts. More important, the Illinois and New York courts allowed their states the power to punish real estate brokers for discriminatory actions. In Chicago, the appeal of a local association of real estate brokers was denied. The association alleged on various grounds that their constitutional rights were being compromised by the city's fair-housing ordinance. The court thought otherwise, holding that a broker's license can be legitimately suspended if he is found either to have indulged in "panic peddling" (influencing whites to sell because a Negro has moved into the neighborhood) or to have failed to show a property for rent or sale to a potential customer because of his race, beliefs or nationality. In New York, a court held that discriminatory practices in violation of the open-housing laws can constitute "untrustworthiness" and thereby provide grounds for the revocation of a broker's license. In the other direction, laws giving homeowners the right to sell or rent to whomever they wish are being struck down. Following the lead of the California Supreme Court, which took similar action last year, a Michigan Circuit Court ruled that the voter-installed Detroit homeowners' ordinance was "unconstitutional because of its excessive vagueness."

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