Well, HUD seems to think so too.
On June 3, 2025, HUD issued a proposed rule with a comment period until July 3, 2025, which is titled Rescission of Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing Regulations.
The substance of this proposed rule is less interesting than it's stated justification. Specifically, the justification states:
The Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing regulations are not about preventing discrimination; rather, they require applicants to affirmatively attract minority persons and to do so through “minority publications or other minority outlets.” 24 CFR 200.620. Far from supporting the race-neutral and purely prohibitory requirements of the Act, the AFHM regulations require private parties to sort individuals by race and engage in outreach based on race.
In fact, the proposed rule clearly takes issue with this approach in reminding the public that the Fair Housing Act is "aimed at discrimination against persons because of race, not informational disparities."
Then, it goes further in citing SCOTUS' anti-affirmative action case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, for the proposition that "[r]equiring applicants to reach out to different racial groups, in different mediums, perpetuates the “impermissible racial stereotype” that “members of the same racial group—regardless of their age, education, economic status, or the community in which they live—think alike.”
In the end, this sentence says it all, "HUD should encourage applicants to be color-blind, as it is always immoral to treat some racial groups differently than others."
We wonder if state / city government will take notice and change their discriminatory requirements.
