A former Eastern student filed a suit against Romain Realty, Sept. 16 for race discrimination in Federal Court, after she tried to rent an efficiency apartment on Washtenaw Ave. When Fonte called the landlord she said that she was told that the apartment had already been rented. Testing conducted at the Fair Housing Center over a year's time supports Fonte's claim of race discrimination. Generally testing for race discrimination is done by having a white and African American person equally qualified going to the same place at the same time.
Testers signify reasons for going to court.
An African American, person might be put on a waiting list for a crummy unit in an area of town that's run down, Bejian said. We often see this when conducting testing. According to Bejian, many complainants come to the Fair Housing Center about racial discrimination. There have been 150 complaints of race discrimination brought to us, only 40 percent see significant difference between the treatment of themselves and the treatment of testers, she said. Some do not come forward, because they are not sure if what happened to them is race discrimination.