Where do we draw the line between public and private behavior? Consider: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued an opinion last month … that people seeking roommates are shielded from fair-housing laws by the First Amendment’s protection of free association. … The Fair Housing Act prohibits denying housing to someone based on a protected characteristic, such as race or religion. It also prohibits making or publishing discriminatory advertisements for housing. …
As some of the better objectors to Hanson's argument have pointed out, what he has done is claimed that the line between discrimination the state should allow and discrimination the state should not allow is a quantitative one, not a qualitative one. The part they object to is Hanson's claim that there are factors at work in the quantitative analysis besides "being forced to share a kitchen is more intrusive than being forced to share an elevator"; that is, "the greater the size of the firm, the less discrimination the state should permit". I don't have a dog in this fight, but there are interesting issues here to consider.
1. Jean is a 23-year-old woman with a college education who lives alone. (a) Should the state prevent her from discriminating between sexual partners on the basis of race? (b) If she wishes to do so, does it matter why she prefers one race to another? (c) If she has a reason, does it matter whether that reason is backed by evidence? (For example, maybe she thinks black men's penises are too big but has never slept with a black man or done any research into whether this is true). (d) Should she be able to advertise (on Craigslist, for example) for potential sexual partners with explicitly race-based restrictions? (e) Does the answer to any of the above depend on what race Jean is or what race she wishes to discriminate against?
2. Jean is a 23-year-old woman with a college education who lives alone. Since prostitution has been legalized, she has been the sole proprietor of her own prostitution business, which is operated out of her home and of which she is the only employee. (a)? (b)? (c)? (d)? (e)?
3. Jean is a 23-year-old woman with a college education. Since prostitution has been legalized, she has been working at Bedford's Brothel Inc., whose CEO is a man. There are 100 women employed to provide sexual services. There are 50 other employees, 60% of whom are male, including management, guards, bartenders, health services, and janitorial staff. All of them (except management) are unionized and receive good pay and benefits.
(a) Should the state prevent Bedford's from discriminating against potential clients on the basis of race? Do the gender politics within the corporation matter? If Bedford's isn't allowed to discriminate, should individual prostitutes it employs, such as Jean, be allowed to? Should the union be allowed to negotiate for provisions prohibiting certain races or allowing individual prostitutes to discriminate based on race?(b)? (c)? (d) If Bedford's is allowed to discriminate based on race, should it be allowed to advertise this? If the union is able to negotiate terms allowing its members to discriminate based on race, should it be allowed to point this out when trying to recruit new members?(e)?
The point here is to try to figure out exactly which intuitions are driving the policy and, once we find them, figuring out whether they are rational and whether we should keep them.
"Also, RHanson has correctly diagnosed the current legal discrimination/privacy situation as a class warfare (rich/non-rich +racial equivalent) perspective. It’s a ‘horrible’, formal crime for a white hotel or restaurant owner to decline serving a prospective black customer — but perfectly OK culturally & legally… for a black person to decline using those same “public-accomodations” because he really hates white people."
Is it unfair that pedestrians don't have to follow traffic laws, get driver licenses, and car insurance? Is that class warfare as well?
"Imagine Romney was revealed to have once rejected an apartment because blacks lived in the neighboring apartment. And imagine Obama was revealed to have rejected a roommate in college because he was white. How different would the resulting scandals be?"
Obama's own mother felt that her son had somewhat rejected her for her ex-husband (e.g., "Dreams From My Father") because she was white. I'm sure we all recall the enormous resulting scandal.
Surely the main reason a landlord might care about your race or ethnicity is because your neighbors might care.
I suspect the more common reason they would care is that some races are perceived as having certain traits that landlords find appealing, such as being reliable, honest, quiet, etc.
On the other hand most people seeking a roommate probably just want someone of the same race as them. I don't see anything wrong with that,just as there's nothing wrong with most people marrying people of the same race as them. I don't think it reflects poorly upon people that do that.
So I suspect the difference of motivation leads us to consider the two situations fairly different.
The op-ed concerned explicit discrimination in advertising. Although I suppose one could argue that it's pointless to ban explicit racial filtering when you know unchecked racial filtering is going to happen by the advertising tenant when the recipient shows up.
Another difference between roommate-seekers and landlords is having a large enough pile of data from which to draw statistical conclusions. If a landlord fills 100 apartments, and they're all white people (in a mixed-race neighborhood), it's pretty likely he's discriminating and that's illegal. If, on the other hand, I choose a roommate and he's white, that doesn't prove anything about discrimination - it doesn't even imply it, since over half of people in most areas are white.
After all, most people choose a spouse of the same race; are any of them discriminating against other races? Should that be punishable by law? If 1000 white people choose white spouses, that's enough of a statistical anomaly that some of them are almost certainly "discriminating" (in the sense that they were never willing to consider a person of another race) - but which ones? Even if spouses were chosen at random, you'd expect most of the 1000 white people to end up with a white spouse, so any given case can't really be prosecuted - even if a majority were OK with the idea of prosecuting this sort of "discrimination".
"True enough, but I bet the vast majority of the discrimination the op-ed writer claimed he found was people looking for roommates of the same sex"The op-ed writer said nothing about that kind of discrimination, likely for the reason Douglas Knight gives below. If you click the link, Oliveri refers to "racial, religious or ethnic preference".
I'm not Kpres, but I think it could be a pretty good idea to exclude people by gender (bars already price differently on "ladies night"). Some of the camps associated with O.W.S instituted "safe zones" for women due to fears of attacks. Most business establishments are better policed, but an empirical generalization doesn't merit a normative/legal standard.
I suspect the real difference is that we are willing to blame and punish landlords, who are seen as rich and dominating, but not ordinary people. If we saw Craigslist as similarly rich and dominating, we might blame and punish them as well.
"Poelmo, I don’t think your “it” is the same as what Robin’s talking about. You are distinguishing between sex and race discrimination, which is fine but not what the court & op-ed writer did."
True enough, but I bet the vast majority of the discrimination the op-ed writer claimed he found was people looking for roommates of the same sex. Certain people will then shamelessly abuse this to be able to say: "see, if the brown people, faggots and women discriminate too then why do people get upset when I, the straight, white male, does the same?" Kpres's comment is telling. I was anticipating this and went out of my way to show that the most common form of discrimination, when it comes to roommates, is not equivalent to racism at all.
@Kpres
I want to ask you two questions:
1) how many years of experience, gathering evidence, has the US had with gay couples marrying?
2) would you be be fine with being refused to enter establishments like bars, banks and shops because you are a man and experience tells society that men are far more likely than women to commit a violent crime or a robbery? In fact the crime ratio between men and women is larger than that between black and white men...
Poelmo, I don't think your "it" is the same as what Robin's talking about. You are distinguishing between sex and race discrimination, which is fine but not what the court & op-ed writer did."have you ever seen a racist white person marry a black person? No, you haven’t, because racism is hatred"Amusingly enough, there was an anti-semitic cartoonist whose work can be found on the dingier corners of the net. Eventually discovered his real identity and the fact that he was married to a jewish woman (as was H.P. Lovecraft). But such anecdotal observations don't refute statistical generalizations.
David & wophugus, I disagree that such discrimination is considered unacceptable by society broadly speaking. Minorities self-segregating is generally considered ok, and organizations premised on such are particularly prevalent on college campuses concerned with diversity, inclusion etc. I think most people don't perceive others as being significantly harmed by such self-segregation.
Ely, I think that's a a very poor definition. Deryl Dedmon is among the most reprehensible of racists, but was he particularly powerful? Also, rather than "natural person" I think a better distinguishing feature is "acting in an official/professional capacity". We're talking about individual agents rather than, say, a corporation.
mtraven, Hanson didn't say anything about anyone being irratinoal or biased. In the Landsburg link he says that he thinks the reasons we claim to do things (or make distinctions) are not our real reasons.
daedalus2u, landlord vs tenant and poor vs wealthy are different things, though one may be correlated with another.
Cardon, to reiterate my point above, it is not mere wealth status but the perception of domminating power. When hearing about the past of Jim Crow there will often be stories about a successful black person who is still excluded. Same with even older stories about establishments that were restricted against jews. Our perception is not that it's okay because that particular person is well off.
Scott, he didn't say it's the only reason but the main reason. The profit motive will tend to lead landlords to cater to customers, and if customers are racist the market is likely to reflect that.
"Why are landlords not allowed to discriminate in renting housing? It is not to provide an excuse to “punish” them."
And, of course, nobody claimed it was. Typical of leftists, you're bringing your own biases into your reading. The question is stated clearly..."why do we treat landlords and roommates differently?" That doesn't imply that landlords should or should not be punished.
Really, it's not that hard. Both you and mtraven completely blew it because of your wildly absurd preconceptions about RH's motivations.
"Start with the unexamined supposition that the point of anti-discrimination is to 'blame and punish' landlords."
Uhhh...except that no such supposition was ever made. RH clearly said that we might be more "willing" to blame and punish landlords who engage in discriminatory behavior, not that it was the "point" of anti-discrimination laws. Clearly the point is to prevent discrimination. So why we don't punish roommates as well, since they are clearly engaging in discrimination just as the landlord?
As some of the better objectors to Hanson's argument have pointed out, what he has done is claimed that the line between discrimination the state should allow and discrimination the state should not allow is a quantitative one, not a qualitative one. The part they object to is Hanson's claim that there are factors at work in the quantitative analysis besides "being forced to share a kitchen is more intrusive than being forced to share an elevator"; that is, "the greater the size of the firm, the less discrimination the state should permit". I don't have a dog in this fight, but there are interesting issues here to consider.
1. Jean is a 23-year-old woman with a college education who lives alone. (a) Should the state prevent her from discriminating between sexual partners on the basis of race? (b) If she wishes to do so, does it matter why she prefers one race to another? (c) If she has a reason, does it matter whether that reason is backed by evidence? (For example, maybe she thinks black men's penises are too big but has never slept with a black man or done any research into whether this is true). (d) Should she be able to advertise (on Craigslist, for example) for potential sexual partners with explicitly race-based restrictions? (e) Does the answer to any of the above depend on what race Jean is or what race she wishes to discriminate against?
2. Jean is a 23-year-old woman with a college education who lives alone. Since prostitution has been legalized, she has been the sole proprietor of her own prostitution business, which is operated out of her home and of which she is the only employee. (a)? (b)? (c)? (d)? (e)?
3. Jean is a 23-year-old woman with a college education. Since prostitution has been legalized, she has been working at Bedford's Brothel Inc., whose CEO is a man. There are 100 women employed to provide sexual services. There are 50 other employees, 60% of whom are male, including management, guards, bartenders, health services, and janitorial staff. All of them (except management) are unionized and receive good pay and benefits.
(a) Should the state prevent Bedford's from discriminating against potential clients on the basis of race? Do the gender politics within the corporation matter? If Bedford's isn't allowed to discriminate, should individual prostitutes it employs, such as Jean, be allowed to? Should the union be allowed to negotiate for provisions prohibiting certain races or allowing individual prostitutes to discriminate based on race?(b)? (c)? (d) If Bedford's is allowed to discriminate based on race, should it be allowed to advertise this? If the union is able to negotiate terms allowing its members to discriminate based on race, should it be allowed to point this out when trying to recruit new members?(e)?
The point here is to try to figure out exactly which intuitions are driving the policy and, once we find them, figuring out whether they are rational and whether we should keep them.
William Easterly says that empirically Schelling's model doesn't match the data.
No one mentioned Schelling's segregation model: it would apply for a neighborhood, but not for a multi-tenant apartment.
http://web.mit.edu/rajsingh...
"Also, RHanson has correctly diagnosed the current legal discrimination/privacy situation as a class warfare (rich/non-rich +racial equivalent) perspective. It’s a ‘horrible’, formal crime for a white hotel or restaurant owner to decline serving a prospective black customer — but perfectly OK culturally & legally… for a black person to decline using those same “public-accomodations” because he really hates white people."
Is it unfair that pedestrians don't have to follow traffic laws, get driver licenses, and car insurance? Is that class warfare as well?
"Imagine Romney was revealed to have once rejected an apartment because blacks lived in the neighboring apartment. And imagine Obama was revealed to have rejected a roommate in college because he was white. How different would the resulting scandals be?"
Obama's own mother felt that her son had somewhat rejected her for her ex-husband (e.g., "Dreams From My Father") because she was white. I'm sure we all recall the enormous resulting scandal.
Surely the main reason a landlord might care about your race or ethnicity is because your neighbors might care.
I suspect the more common reason they would care is that some races are perceived as having certain traits that landlords find appealing, such as being reliable, honest, quiet, etc.
On the other hand most people seeking a roommate probably just want someone of the same race as them. I don't see anything wrong with that,just as there's nothing wrong with most people marrying people of the same race as them. I don't think it reflects poorly upon people that do that.
So I suspect the difference of motivation leads us to consider the two situations fairly different.
The op-ed concerned explicit discrimination in advertising. Although I suppose one could argue that it's pointless to ban explicit racial filtering when you know unchecked racial filtering is going to happen by the advertising tenant when the recipient shows up.
Another difference between roommate-seekers and landlords is having a large enough pile of data from which to draw statistical conclusions. If a landlord fills 100 apartments, and they're all white people (in a mixed-race neighborhood), it's pretty likely he's discriminating and that's illegal. If, on the other hand, I choose a roommate and he's white, that doesn't prove anything about discrimination - it doesn't even imply it, since over half of people in most areas are white.
After all, most people choose a spouse of the same race; are any of them discriminating against other races? Should that be punishable by law? If 1000 white people choose white spouses, that's enough of a statistical anomaly that some of them are almost certainly "discriminating" (in the sense that they were never willing to consider a person of another race) - but which ones? Even if spouses were chosen at random, you'd expect most of the 1000 white people to end up with a white spouse, so any given case can't really be prosecuted - even if a majority were OK with the idea of prosecuting this sort of "discrimination".
"True enough, but I bet the vast majority of the discrimination the op-ed writer claimed he found was people looking for roommates of the same sex"The op-ed writer said nothing about that kind of discrimination, likely for the reason Douglas Knight gives below. If you click the link, Oliveri refers to "racial, religious or ethnic preference".
I'm not Kpres, but I think it could be a pretty good idea to exclude people by gender (bars already price differently on "ladies night"). Some of the camps associated with O.W.S instituted "safe zones" for women due to fears of attacks. Most business establishments are better policed, but an empirical generalization doesn't merit a normative/legal standard.
It was already legal for roommates to discriminate on the basis of sex, so she ignored this kind of discrimination.
KPres, did you read what RH wrote?
I suspect the real difference is that we are willing to blame and punish landlords, who are seen as rich and dominating, but not ordinary people. If we saw Craigslist as similarly rich and dominating, we might blame and punish them as well.
"Poelmo, I don’t think your “it” is the same as what Robin’s talking about. You are distinguishing between sex and race discrimination, which is fine but not what the court & op-ed writer did."
True enough, but I bet the vast majority of the discrimination the op-ed writer claimed he found was people looking for roommates of the same sex. Certain people will then shamelessly abuse this to be able to say: "see, if the brown people, faggots and women discriminate too then why do people get upset when I, the straight, white male, does the same?" Kpres's comment is telling. I was anticipating this and went out of my way to show that the most common form of discrimination, when it comes to roommates, is not equivalent to racism at all.
@Kpres
I want to ask you two questions:
1) how many years of experience, gathering evidence, has the US had with gay couples marrying?
2) would you be be fine with being refused to enter establishments like bars, banks and shops because you are a man and experience tells society that men are far more likely than women to commit a violent crime or a robbery? In fact the crime ratio between men and women is larger than that between black and white men...
lemmy caution, RH is asking why.
Poelmo, I don't think your "it" is the same as what Robin's talking about. You are distinguishing between sex and race discrimination, which is fine but not what the court & op-ed writer did."have you ever seen a racist white person marry a black person? No, you haven’t, because racism is hatred"Amusingly enough, there was an anti-semitic cartoonist whose work can be found on the dingier corners of the net. Eventually discovered his real identity and the fact that he was married to a jewish woman (as was H.P. Lovecraft). But such anecdotal observations don't refute statistical generalizations.
David & wophugus, I disagree that such discrimination is considered unacceptable by society broadly speaking. Minorities self-segregating is generally considered ok, and organizations premised on such are particularly prevalent on college campuses concerned with diversity, inclusion etc. I think most people don't perceive others as being significantly harmed by such self-segregation.
Ely, I think that's a a very poor definition. Deryl Dedmon is among the most reprehensible of racists, but was he particularly powerful? Also, rather than "natural person" I think a better distinguishing feature is "acting in an official/professional capacity". We're talking about individual agents rather than, say, a corporation.
mtraven, Hanson didn't say anything about anyone being irratinoal or biased. In the Landsburg link he says that he thinks the reasons we claim to do things (or make distinctions) are not our real reasons.
daedalus2u, landlord vs tenant and poor vs wealthy are different things, though one may be correlated with another.
Cardon, to reiterate my point above, it is not mere wealth status but the perception of domminating power. When hearing about the past of Jim Crow there will often be stories about a successful black person who is still excluded. Same with even older stories about establishments that were restricted against jews. Our perception is not that it's okay because that particular person is well off.
Scott, he didn't say it's the only reason but the main reason. The profit motive will tend to lead landlords to cater to customers, and if customers are racist the market is likely to reflect that.
Poelmo, de gustibus non est disputandum.
"However, it can’t be a perfectly rational society, by definition, if there are members of that society who are bigots."
Of course, the vast majority of discrimination isn't based on bigotry, but evidence and experience.
"Why are landlords not allowed to discriminate in renting housing? It is not to provide an excuse to “punish” them."
And, of course, nobody claimed it was. Typical of leftists, you're bringing your own biases into your reading. The question is stated clearly..."why do we treat landlords and roommates differently?" That doesn't imply that landlords should or should not be punished.
Really, it's not that hard. Both you and mtraven completely blew it because of your wildly absurd preconceptions about RH's motivations.
"Start with the unexamined supposition that the point of anti-discrimination is to 'blame and punish' landlords."
Uhhh...except that no such supposition was ever made. RH clearly said that we might be more "willing" to blame and punish landlords who engage in discriminatory behavior, not that it was the "point" of anti-discrimination laws. Clearly the point is to prevent discrimination. So why we don't punish roommates as well, since they are clearly engaging in discrimination just as the landlord?
An interesting projection on your part, though.