Opinion ID: 752967
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The need for corrective action

Text: 76 The majority's conclusion crumbles upon examination of the entire Proposed Plan and explanations of the FHC staff, discussed above. By focusing only on the necessity to educate home seekers and consumers, the majority overlooks an entire segment of the FHC's mission: to educate publishers and housing providers. Montgomery Newspapers published discriminatory ads, which itself demonstrates that housing providers and the newspaper do not understand the terms of the Fair Housing Act. Because the FHC aims to ensure compliance by education, it must now divert resources to redress that damage. Thus, I am compelled to conclude that the FHC has suffered the requisite identifiable trifle of injury to its educational programs. 77 The FHC has demonstrated that its educational plan is a necessary response to correct the discriminatory advertisements published by Montgomery Newspapers. The Proposed Plan explains that, among others, real estate professionals are ignorant of the family status provisions of the Fair Housing Act. Advertisements that contain comments such as no children or pets, and professional male need only apply exemplify this ignorance. The FHC intends to reach consumers to explain the Fair Housing Act. However, the majority fails to recognize that the FHC also plans to explain Fair Housing Act compliance to housing providers and real estate professionals, who place and read advertisements in Montgomery Newspapers and perpetuate discriminatory advertising. 78 The majority suggests that the FHC would have satisfied standing requirements if it could show that home seekers have actually been barred from housing, deterred from seeking housing, or formed a misimpression about housing availability as a result of the advertisements published in the Montgomery Newspapers. This is simply incorrect. An aggrieved home seeker is not necessary to show a violation of section 3604. Housing providers and newspapers violate 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c) upon publication. The Fair Housing Act expressly empowers organizations like the FHC to enforce its provisions without joining a home seeker as a co-plaintiff, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3602, 3613, in the federal district courts, 42 U.S.C. § 3613(a)(1)(A), to seek the award of actual or punitive damages or the grant of permanent or temporary injunctive relief. 42 U.S.C. § 3613(c)(1).