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| Re: Lawsuit alleges two Bronx co-ops prevent blacks from purchasing units (558517) | |||
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Re: Lawsuit alleges two Bronx co-ops prevent blacks from purchasing units |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Sat Feb 6 11:47:30 2010, in response to Re: Lawsuit alleges two Bronx co-ops prevent blacks from purchasing units, posted by G1Ravage on Sat Feb 6 02:16:46 2010. If so, then that employee may have some racial bias, and should be fired, but that doesn't mean the entire organization or community is racist.Ordinarily, I'd agree, but this has been an open secret for years. I assume that what kept problems from popping up was that nonwhites (and maybe hispanic whites) simply didn't desire to move there, either because they didn't like the developments, or because they didn't know about the developments. Now in many co-ops, income and asset requirements are what keep people out. That's perfectly legal if uniformly enforced. Some/many co-ops add on other requirements, such as not liking the look on someone's face, which is also a perfectly legal ground on which to reject an applicant so long as the reason for not liking the look on an applicant's face is not on account of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc. Other co-ops will not admit applicants who are lawyers, and that's usually rather legal. So essentially, so long as the co-op doesn't violate fair housing laws, they can admit or reject whoever they like. In fact, a co-op is not required to give any rejected applicant reasons why the applicant was rejected. An applicant who feels that he was discriminated against unlawfully can file suit, and then the alleged reasons will come out, and at that stage, the co-op should want to make very sure that it's on the firmest grounds, e.g., income and asset requirements. In this particular case, one really big thing quickens my suspicions about these developments, other than the reports circulating for years. These are super-duper low cost developments, so income and asset requirements are simply not barriers to entry. The barrier here at the co-op level is the 'I don't like the look on your face' reason. Co-ops have relationships with real estate agents who do a lot of work with them. In some corrupt cases, there is even bribery, i.e., members of co-op board will demand to be paid off under the table to even consider an application. Co-ops know that if they're secretly discriminating, 'I don't like the look on your face' isn't a good ground to defend a lawsuit on, especially against a plaintiff who has a respectable job, clean record, and more cash on hand and in the bank than most residents do. So co-ops committed to illegality will act in concert with the agents: don't bring us the kind of people that we will want to reject. The motivation is simple - if the co-op board never has to pass judgment in the first place, they will never be forced to state their reasons. |
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