Got a blog tip? Contact us
« And now a word from our sponsor | Main | Comedy on Sunday »
Blacklisting at Craigslist
I read today in the NYT that a group is suing Craigslist because the site does not fully screen out real estate ads that overtly discriminate. I'm down with policing housing discrimination, but I had two thoughts when reading the article: (1) making it illegal to state a preference in advertising probably only minimally keeps someone who wants to discriminate from discriminating and (2) does this apply to shares? Because I'm not sure that it should apply to shares.
If I were in the market for an apartment, I would want to know if I my potential roommate was a bigot. (It would save me some time when apartment hunting.) So I created an ad that probably violates the policy but is more helpful than the one would have to write if he had a spare bedroom. Read it now; it probably won't be up for long.
Hardwood floors and new appliances are very hard to find in New York for under a thousand.
UPDATE: Posted at midnight, flagged and taken down by 8AM.
Posted by Charles Star on 03/05/2006 | Permalink
Comments
IANAL, but from what I understand the legal rules governing housing discrimination differ based on whether one is advertising a share that they will live in (where it seems pretty much anything goes) vs. advertising separate apartments (etc.) that the advertiser will be a landlord or agent for (to which traditional fair-housing laws would apply).
Posted by: mollymolo | Mar 8, 2006 12:27:26 PM
That was my understanding too, but the New York Times article about the lawsuit suggests otherwise.
Posted by: Carrie McLaren | Mar 9, 2006 9:16:11 AM
That they took the ad down immediately suggests otherwise also.
Posted by: Charles Star | Mar 10, 2006 8:36:00 AM
