Olatunde Johnson Elucidates the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Provision for NBC Today

Olatunde Johnson (‘97), Columbia Law School Professor of Law, contributed to NBC Today regarding the recently rescinded Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) provision which aimed to enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act and provided a framework for local governments to take “meaningful action” against discrimination and segregation in housing (“Trump Claims to Save the ‘Suburban Lifestyle Dream’ — but Whose Dream Is It?” Aug. 12). In creating the AFFH in 2015, “The federal government was realizing that it [1968 Fair Housing Act] was just a paper obligation, that it wasn’t really meaningful.” Regarding Trump’s recent statements anticipating “suburban housewife” voter support for ending the Obama Administration rule, Olatunde said, “I think this is more about politics than about the intricacies of affirmatively furthering fair housing. I think it’s a dramatic mischaracterization of what the AFFH had the capacity to do. ... It also mischaracterizes the suburbs and how much they’ve changed in a lot of communities. ... You’re talking about fairness at the heart of this. Because we all contribute to the federal government through our tax dollars, and it can’t be used to benefit some communities and not others.”
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