The Fair Housing Act is the common name for Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 11 April 1968, a U.S. federal law that prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, financing, and advertising of housing on the basis of race, color, religion, and national origin. The law was amended in 1974 to add sex and in 1988 to add disability and familial status (the presence of children under 18 in a household). Some federal courts have held that the Act's sex-discrimination provision extends to sexual orientation and gender identity, but this is not codified explicitly in the statute and remains debated. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administers and enforces the Act, including its mandate to “affirmatively further fair housing” (AFFH), the scope of which is itself a matter of ongoing dispute.
The Act today recognizes seven protected classes: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, and familial status. It bars outright refusal to sell or rent, discriminatory terms or conditions, discriminatory advertising, “steering” of buyers or renters toward or away from neighborhoods, and intimidation or interference with a person exercising fair housing rights. Enforcement runs through HUD administrative complaints, U.S. Department of Justice pattern-or-practice suits, and private civil litigation.
A central interpretive question is whether liability under the Act requires proof of intentional discrimination or whether a facially neutral policy that produces a statistically disparate outcome (“disparate impact”) is independently actionable. In Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. (2015), the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that disparate-impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act, while also holding that a plaintiff must show the defendant's specific policy caused the disparity rather than relying on statistics alone. This holding, and how lower courts apply it, remains a live point of controversy.
A second recurring flashpoint is HUD's AFFH regulations, which require recipients of HUD funds to take affirmative steps against segregation rather than merely refrain from discriminating. The scope, legal basis, and proper stringency of this mandate have varied by administration and remain contested among legal scholars, local governments, and housing advocates.
History of the Act's passage-including its connection to the Civil Rights Movement, the 1966-1968 congressional debates, and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.-is treated at fair-housing-act-1968-history.