Trump Is Making It Easier to Get Away With Discrimination
The Trump administration stands ready to fulfill a long-standing dream of insurance companies, big banks, and many conservative legal scholars: making it safe to enact policies that are neutral in theory, but that have unequal effects in practice.
On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that the administration intends to roll back regulations that bar discrimination on the basis of “disparate impact.” In particular, Trump officials have their eyes on regulations that prevent discrimination in housing. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has already pulled back on investigations into such matters.
The concept is relatively simple, but controversial: Disparate-impact regulations prohibit actions that have the effect of discriminating against particular groups, not just those that are intended to do so. Disparate-impact regulations make it possible to attack prejudice on a systemic scale rather than addressing individual acts alone. Less dramatic than a wall on the southern border and quieter than the travel ban,
